Bedford-1997.Pdf

Bedford-1997.Pdf

A History of Accountancy At the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign By Norton M. Bedford, Ph.D. Published by the Center for International Education And Research in Accounting Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bedford, Norton M. A History of Accountancy at The University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois / Norton Bedford 1. Accounting—study and teaching—Illinois 2. University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign Campus). Dept. of Accountancy HF5630 1997 657.07109773 1997, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproducted, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photo-copying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Center for International Education and Research in Accounting, Department of Accountancy, University of Illinois, 320 Commerce West, 1206 West Sixth Street, Champaign, IL 61820 Project Coordinator Ella J. Mayer Copy editing JaNoel Lowe Composition Celia Shapland Cover Design Graphic Solutions Table of Contents Foreword 2 Preface 3 About the Author 5 Chapter I The Origin (1900–1915)—The Emergence 6 of Hiram Thompson Scovill Chapter II The Organization (1915–1930)—The Founding 11 Six: Scovill, Littleton, Morey, Filbey, Schlatter, and Baily Chapter III The Stabilization (1930–1945)—The Future 18 Replacements: Moyer, Newcomer, Mautz, Gaa, Dickey, Thomas, Wakefield Chapter IV The Standardization (1945–1960)—The Third 26 Generation: Mautz, Moyer, Dickey, Thomas, Bedford, Skadden, Wyatt, Perry, Brighton, Zimmerman Chapter V The Expansion (1960–1975)—The Actionaries: 33 Demaris, McKeown, Fess, Bedford, Holzer, Neumann, Schoenfeld Chapter VI The Restructuring (1975–1990)— 44 The Implementers: Neumann, Boland, Smith, Bedford, Willis, Schoenfeld, Solomon, Tomassini, Dietrich, Beck, Brown, Ziebart, Ziegler Chapter VII The Future (1990–2005)—The Futurists: 59 Bailey, Solomon, Kwon, Beck, Brown, Davis, Kleinmuntz, Stone, Ziebart Appendix I The Accounting Faculty 75 Appendix II Doctors of Philosophy in Accountancy 96 Appendix III Number of Accountancy Graduates 115 Appendix IV Number of Visiting Scholars 116 Representative References 117 1 Foreword In 1994, when I accepted the position as Head of the Department of Accountancy at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, I recognized that I was moving to a Department with a stellar history. I knew that the University of Illinois dominated the early development of accounting education and had made equally important contributions to the professional practice of accounting. Names like Scovill, Littleton, Mautz, Bedford and others were well known to me. However, I found that, in most cases, I did not have a clear picture about the contributions made by these individuals either to the development of the Department or to professional practice. Like many institutions, it seemed to me that the Department of Accountancy had not carefully maintained a record of its historic contributions. In addition to its outstanding reputation, the fact that the Department was not resting on its laurels also attracted me. The current faculty, following in the footsteps of the founders, was involved with a major undergraduate curriculum revision—Project Discovery. As the top-rated program in the country, the faculty did not have to commit to this ambitious endeavor, only recently fully implemented. Like the founders, they wanted the University of Illinois to continue in its leadership role in accounting education. Unlike the earlier years of the Department, I had a much better idea about the genesis of Project Discovery. The current faculty deserve all of the credit for Project Discovery’s initiation, refinement, and implementation. However, Norton Bedford, one of the giants of the Department, is clearly the intellectual founder of the Project Discovery concept. This is true and recognized by all of us even though Norton never used this title and was not directly involved in the implementation of the project itself. My spotty understanding about the Department’s history remained a nagging concern as I embarked on my new role as Head of the Department. While there were many interesting sources of information about the Department, including a monograph published in honor of the first fifty years of the Ph.D. program, there was no document that put the Department’s life in an historic framework. None of the original founders of the Department are left to tell us this story. We were rapidly approaching the point where much of the history would be lost. Norton, recently retired, but active in accounting affairs was our best link to the history of the Department of Accountancy and its role in leading the way for accounting education and the accounting profession. His contributions to the Department and accounting education recommended him for this project. At my urging, Norton agreed to write his history of the Department of Accountancy. The following document is the result of his efforts. I am pleased with the outcome. I have found the manuscript very useful and interesting reading. It provided me with a framework for understanding the Department, a greater appreciation of the contributions to accounting education and practice made by many of the faculty, past and present, and by the University of Illinois as an institution. While, the specific contents and opinions represented in the manuscript are those of Professor Bedford, in my opinion, this is a book well worth reading. The Center for International Education and Research in Accounting is proud to publish “A History of Accountancy at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign,” by Professor Norton M. Bedford. I want to thank Norton for agreeing to accept this project and for providing us with a document that preserves a part of the history of the Department of Accountancy at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign. Andrew D. Bailey, Jr. Director, Center for International Education and Research in Accounting University of Illinois 2 3 Preface This history of the Department of Accountancy is a description of the faculty, activities, events, and circumstances guiding the formation and development of the Department. This is a history of the Department of Accountancy as a distinct entity at the University of Illinois. Other than environmental developments that appear to bear on accounting education at Illinois, activities of the College and University have not been included. Activities of short-term Illinois accounting faculty members not associated with the Department long enough to influence the direction of the Department are not reported. Similarly, the faculty members’ nonaccounting duties and activities not related to the history of accounting at Illinois have been omitted. Within these bounds, the attached history provides a reasonable representation of the activities of the Department of Accountancy over the century. Appendices of statistics and facts are added to support the historical description. The significance of the history rests on the multitude of recognitions bestowed on the Illinois Department of Accountancy. It has been ranked by various systematic surveys of faculties and practitioners for many years as number one in undergraduate accounting education and numbers one through five in graduate accounting education. The Department has granted more Ph.Ds. in accounting than any other university in the world. Also, the Accounting Hall of Fame includes among its list of the first fifty members (1950 through 1990) of accounting practitioners (32) and academics (18) the names of five academics from the University of Illinois: Professor Hiram Thompson Scovill 1954 Professor Ananias Charles Littleton 1956 Professor Lloyd Morey 1963 Professor Robert Kuhn Mautz 1978 Professor Norton Moore Bedford 1988 The success of the faculty in sensing the ever changing accounting information needs of business, governments, individuals, and other entities of society underlies much of the success of the Department. Equally important are the continuous actions of the faculty in developing contacts to become aware of those changing attitudes, activities, and aspirations of both preparers and users of accounting information. The third contributing factor to the long-term success of the Department is the ability of the faculty to translate the accumulated knowledge about information needs and the aspirations of preparers and users of accounting information into concepts, methods, and standards for educating students. To illustrate the success of the Department over the several years of this history, the constant improvements in the relevance and reliability of accounting information for economic society are emphasized. As a second indicator of the success of the Department, outstanding activities and honors of specific accounting faculty members are highlighted. Although a search was made for information in various histories of accounting, the University of Illinois, and the professional, economic, and cultural environments of societies, there is no contention that all relevant facts have been identified. As with most histories, over time new discoveries and new perspectives may provide a more useful description of Accounting at the University of Illinois. The primary sources of the material presented are the Archives at the University of Illinois Library, the Department of Accountancy office files, individual faculty files and records, records of associations (AAA, AICPA, and NAA), and personal interviews with retired faculty. 4 My thanks go to Professor

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