American Accounting Association Honors Washburn Professor Pamela Schmidt

Schmidt received the award for her educational business case paper “Casey’s Collections: A Risk Assessment Case,” co-authored with Kimberly Swanson Church, Assistant Professor of Accounting at University of Missouri-Kansas City. The Best Education Paper is awarded at the national level and is sponsored by the AAA Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Section.  The winner is selected by peer judges across all seven of the U.S. regions of the American Accounting Association and the presentation is made by the recipient's region.

“We want to expose students to realistic business situations and help them to see the situation from the perspective of an internal manager of the company,” said Schmidt. “Students typically have limited work experience, so experiencing a rich and immersive business situation can help to grow students’ knowledge and ability to ask key questions in a specific business context.

“Each student is assigned a role in the company, such as CEO, CFO, CIO or retail store manager. They review the background of the fictitious company, role play and then collaborate on risk assessment and planning for risk avoidance.”

The paper answers the need for student engagement and real-world experiences through case-based learning. Schmidt and Church base their educational case on current industry standards for risk assessment and business continuity planning to provide auditing and accounting information system students with a realistic risk assessment business project. This experiential business case technique is chosen because professional certification exams utilize simulations to demonstrate business management knowledge and skills.

The American Accounting Association is the premier community of accountants in academia, founded in 1916, with a rich and reputable history built on leading-edge research and publications. The diverse membership shapes the future of accounting through teaching, research and a strong network in accounting.   The Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Section is dedicated to the continual improvement of accounting education, especially through the development of relevant and innovative curricula, a renewed emphasis of effective and efficient instruction, and the exploration of knowledge-organization issues related to accounting programs.