Pamela Smith - 2010 board of trustees professor

Dr. Pamela Smith: One of the reasons why I think accounting is such a cool topic, is that it is the language of business. male narrator: Dr. Pam Smith, the KPMG Professor of Accountancy in the College of Business uses an interactive environment and a clear building block approach to teach accounting’s most challenging topics. Dr. Pam Smith: One of the areas that I really find exciting and fun to teach, yes I’ll use the word fun, is Derivatives and Hedging. Dr. James Young: It’s a very complex area, one in which there aren’t many people around the country that have a really good handle on how to try to bring that very complex topic into the classroom. Dr. Denise Schoenbachler: She presents it in a way that students really understand. They not only understand it, they love it. It’s really hard for me sometimes to understand how students can love accounting, but they do after they’ve had Pam. narrator: Dr. Smith’s teaching methodology has won a number of notable awards including the prestigious American Accounting Association Innovation and Accounting Education Award. Dr. Young: The faculty view her as a role model and I think it’s because of her ability to integrate her research, her desire to get students to understand how to learn, and what’s going on in the practice- community. Dr. Schoenbachler: She’s one of the top teachers in that program. Her research is nationally recognized, she’s been ask the expert witness on cases in accounting, and she serves as journal editor; and then in the service end Pam became passionate about how to deliver ethics education in the classroom. Dr. Pam Smith: I wanted to make sure that our students were armed with the tools they needed to recognize ethical dilemmas because that’s one of the biggest problems, and the tools to make decisions and evaluate the alternatives that are available to them. Dr. Young: So Pam was a part of the original team that put the belief initiative together in the college. Dr. Schoenbachler: She developed Belief Day, Ethics day that we have every fall in the College of Business- brings in a key-note speaker for the students to understand better how ethics should be a part of their lives. Dr. Young: One of our Alums is the CFO at McDonald’s, and she wanted Pam to know more than anything else that what Pam was doing from an ethics education perspective was probably the most thing important thing that she was delivering to our students. Dr. Schoenbachler: Pam has worked very hard, passionately, tirelessly to do the things she really believes in and that’s just real NIU. She’s just a true NIU citizen.