It is at this time of the year, when many college students return to campus, that we turn our focus to the issues surrounding the education of the next generation of professionals. The accounting profession is constantly trying to keep pace with the businesses it serves, and many of the articles published this month ask whether the faculty and institutions responsible for preparing the next generation of professionals are keeping pace with the changes in the profession.

Featured this month is a point-counterpoint on the state of accounting education in business schools today. Kenton Walker argues that business schools lack accountability, suffering from an overemphasis on research and not preparing students with practical knowledge. Nick Mastracchio disagrees, arguing that the idea that faculty are out of date and uninterested in teaching students is a myth.

Elsewhere in our In Focus section, Charles Jordan and Stanley Clark argue that accounting should emulate other professions and place a higher importance on professional certification for educators. Collaboration between practitioners and academics is at the heart of Gregory Tapis and John Delaney's argument for the increased use of advisory boards to improve outcomes for accounting students.

Our News & Views section includes a variety of personal perspectives on the teaching of accounting. Jessie George shares the lessons she learned from her first year in the classroom. Gregory Krivacek relates how teaching was a dream come true after a career in industry. Other viewpoints discuss the need for the curriculum to keep up with the skills that practicing accountants need, the increasing importance of data analytics to accounting work, and the eternal relevance of ethics in a professional education.