Sustainability and Accounting Education—The What Ifs

Tracey J. Niemotko, JD, CPA, CFE, FSA

What if students who are required to take a core accounting course could study more alluring topics in that core course, such as sustainability and forensic accounting, and learn how to read financial statements without first mastering the accounting process? What if the first exposure to accounting did not have to focus on the nuts and bolts—debits, credits, journals, ledgers, trial balances, adjustments, financial statements—and instead focused on the need for and purpose of an accounting system? What if students could first understand why external reporting is important, how data is interpreted, and then study the system that is used to organize and summarize data for this external reporting? What if students could apply a bit of creativity as to how they would recommend organizing and summarizing data and then be presented with debits and credits? What if students could first learn about career opportunities in accounting to perhaps view accounting in a different light? Maybe the most significant “what if” is whether students would be more engaged and motivated to learn about accounting (and thus enter the accounting pipeline), if accounting educators could cast a wider net and use the introductory accounting course to generate interest—rather than use it as a forum for the mechanics of debits and credits and the accounting system?