The Ledger

Florence Atiase, a lecturer in the Department of Accounting, has received the Texas Society of CPAs’ (TSCPA) Outstanding Accounting Educator Award for 2009. The award honors those who have demonstrated excellence in teaching and have distinguished themselves through active service to the accounting profession.

Atiase fits the profile perfectly. Since joining the McCombs faculty in 1993, she has taught a variety of courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including introductory financial and managerial accounting, intermediate financial accounting and financial statement analysis.

Urton Anderson, professor and chair of the Department of Accounting, said, “Florence is truly an outstanding member of the accounting profession who has done much to pass on the values of the profession to a new generation of CPAs.”
 
Her dedication as a teacher is reflected in her students’ comments on her teaching evaluations. “She explains things really well,” one student wrote, “making a very difficult subject accessible to all students.”  Other comments characterize her as “a hard but a compassionate and dedicated teacher” and “one of the best professors I have had at UT so far.”

In 2001, Atiase received the President’s Service Award in appreciation for exceptional dedication and service to the TSCPA’s Austin chapter. In 2007 she also received the CPA of the Year – Industry, Government and Education award from the Austin CPA Chapter of the TSCPA.

Atiase has done a lot of work to promote diversity, both within the McCombs community and the accounting profession.  She serves as a member of the TSCPA’s Diversity and Inclusiveness Committee and as faculty advisor to the University chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants. Since 1994, she has been the faculty coordinator/instructor and facilitator of the McCombs Accounting Career Awareness Program summer camp for underrepresented high school students interested in a career in accounting. In recent years, 80 to 100 percent of former ACAP participants have enrolled as University of Texas business majors.

Atiase joins former McCombs TSCPA Outstanding Educator Award winners Professors Anna Flower, Michael Granof, Ray Sommerfeld and Ed Summers.