For the Department of Accounting, saying goodbye to Dr. Jim Deitrick after 39 years of teaching is bittersweet. His smiling face and passion for teaching will be missed.

Jim Deitrick, currently the KPMG Faculty Fellow, has taught undergraduate, masters’ and Ph.D. students in a variety of courses during his tenure at the University of Texas at Austin. His love of accounting and sense of humor comes through in his lectures, resulting in numerous teaching awards including the McCombs Excellence in Education Award and the Texas Society of CPAs Outstanding Accounting Educator Award.

One of Jim Deitrick’s most enduring honors is the MPA Council’s Outstanding Professor Award. The award is chosen by students, and Jim won it so often, 10 times, they finally named it after him: the Jim Deitrick Outstanding Professor Award.

In addition, Jim has served on several professional committees within the university. He has authored numerous research papers, written a textbook study guide and served on editorial boards of accounting education journals.

Jim was the initial Director of the Professional Program in Accounting (PPA), one of the country’s first 150-hour programs and what would later become the Masters in Professional Accounting (MPA) program. He held the role of director of our MPA program for eleven years. It was during his tenure as Director that Texas received its first #1 ranking from the Public Accounting Report.

Another lasting legacy Jim leaves is the Jim Deitrick Endowed Scholarship for International Accounting Study. Passionate about travel, Jim was the faculty sponsor each year for the MPA study abroad trip to Paris. It was in his honor that the McCombs School of Business created the Jim Deitrick Endowed Scholarship for International Accounting Study to provide an outstanding accounting student the funds to experience one of these life-changing trips.

Archana Bhat (BBA ’15, MPA ’16) was one of the last group of students to travel with Jim for study abroad last summer. “Throughout the duration of the study abroad experience, Dr. Deitrick was extremely passionate about traveling in order to experience all that Europe had to offer and to learn about and share the rich cultural and historical significance of the areas. He believed that by studying abroad and expanding our horizons we could exchange ideas and learn significant things from one another, in accounting
as well as other fields.”

A favorite of students, staff and faculty, Jim Deitrick has left his mark on the University of Texas. We thank him for his long tenure shaping generations of future accountants, and wish him luck in his future endeavors.