Linda Matuszewski, assistant professor of Accountancy, received the 2009 Bea Sanders/AICPA Innovation in Teaching Award. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is the national, professional organization for all Certified Public Accountants and provides members with the resources, information, and leadership that enables them to provide valuable services in the highest professional manner to benefit the public as well as employers and clients (as per the AICPA website).
Linda Matuszewski is the first NIU Accountancy faculty to receive this prestigious award. Matuszewski received this award for her co-authored project "UCare: A Business Plan Project for Managerial Accounting Classes," which helped students understand the impact in businesses of accounting information and apply cost management skills. The project also required accounting students to utilize and strengthen their teamwork and communication skills.
Matuszewski, along with her co-author, will receive the award at the 2010 American Accounting Association (AAA) annual meeting in San Francisco, where Matuszewski will also make a presentation during the conference's "Teaching and Learning in Accounting" session.
James Johnson, Professor of Finance, and Pam Smith, KPMG Endowed Professor of Accountancy, received the Executive M.B.A. Golden Apple Award for the year 2009. The award recipients are determined based upon votes from students in the NIU Executive M.B.A. program. Smith received the award for excellence in teaching at the Year 1 level of the Executive M.B.A. program, while Johnson received the award for excellence in teaching at the Year 2 level. During their Spring Banquet, the Executive M.B.A. Class of 2009 presented the awards to Drs. Smith and Johnson.
Ed Brata -- Marketing Department Instructor in the college's Sales Program -- is one of only four instructors university-wide to receive the 2009 NIU Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Brata is a three-time recipient of this award, having earned it in previous years, which reflects the consistency of his instructional excellence in the classroom. Learn more about this outstanding teacher and the positive impact his instruction has made in the lives of NIU business students by reading this article on the 2009 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Awards.
Research has proven that a network of mentors is an invaluable tool for businesspeople to use throughout their careers. Now, NIU business majors who enroll in the Department of Management Organizational Behavior course (MGMT 335) will learn how to establish those networks before they even graduate college. Management Assistant Professor Wendy Murphy, who teaches the course, also developed an e-mentoring program as part of the course activities. The e-mentoring component engages students with business professionals (more than 30 to date) who help the students understand how business concepts discussed in the classroom can play themselves out in existing firms. They also share how they, as business professionals, have handled various workplace issues. Beyond discussion of business processes and practices, the e-mentoring program creates authentic relationships between the students and the professionals, many of whom are NIU Management alumni. Often times, opportunities result from these mentoring activities, such as the internship positions that were made available for two of the students who previously took the course. Read the full story to learn more about the e-mentoring program in the Department of Management Organizational Behavior class.
Read the Daily Chronicle story.
Natalie Churyk, Caterpillar Professor of Accountancy, and her coauthor Alan Reinstein received a $30,000 grant from PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to fund Churyk's business combination case by adding some rigorous new materials, converting it into an IFRS case. Within six years, the U.S. will join the rest of the world's industrialized countries and many emerging economies by adopting International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). PWC understands the challenges IFRS presents to college curriculums. It is important for new hires to have the knowledge and skills necessary to work on current clients with foreign subsidiaries and to be prepared for the upcoming changes. To assist in this regard, PWC has provided competitive funding to support faculty as they build IFRS into their curriculum. This year, PWC will award more than $790,000 to fund 24 proposals. Churyk's proposal is one of 24 to meet the criteria and be awarded PWC funding.
Tim Aurand, Associate Professor of Marketing, received the 2008 Professional M.B.A. Golden Apple Award for excellence in instruction. Aurand received the award based on votes from the students in the Professional M.B.A. class of 2008.
Pam Smith, KPMG Endowed Professor of Accountancy, received the 2008 Executive MBA Golden Apple Award as the outstanding first-year professor in the Executive MBA program. Smith received the award based on votes from students in the EMBA Class of 2008.
Jim Johnson, Professor of Finance, received the 2008 Executive MBA Golden Apple Award as the outstanding second-year professor in the Executive MBA program. Johnson received the award based on votes from students in the EMBA Class of 2008.
Mark Rosenbaum, assistant professor in the Department of Marketing, has been selected to be a Fulbright Scholar in Cambodia. In the summer of 2009, Rosenbaum will teach Principles of Marketing & Services Marketing at the National University of Management (NUM) in Cambodia. NUM is the leading business school in Cambodia and offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in business administration, as well as community outreach and entrepreneurship programs through its Small and Medium Enterprise Initiative. Over his four-month stay, Rosenbaum plans to be immersed not only in Asian culture as it pertains to business practices and norms, but equally Rosenbaum will be actively engaged with both the academic and business sectors in Asia, translating theory into practice. On the academic front and along with his teaching activities, Rosenbaum will work with NUM faculty to help them develop a Services Marketing course (currently not in existence at NUM). Rosenbaum will also help them to update their course delivery through the use of technologies such as Blackboard, podcasts, wikis, and video streaming lectures. On the business front, Rosenbaum intends to be involved in NUM's Small & Medium Enterprise efforts, through which he will educate leading practitioners in the fields of business, health care, and tourism on American business practices. Rosenbaum's and NUM faculty's interaction with these leading practitioners ultimately may result in improving the quality of life for Cambodian citizens. At NIU, Rosenbaum currently teaches Principles of Marketing, a required course for all undergraduate NIU business students. He has experience teaching Service Marketing to Executive M.B.A. NIU students. His previous international experience includes teaching at the Hanoi School of Business in Vietnam and most recently, travelling to Myanmar to train business professionals through his work with Marie Stopes International (MSI), a not-for-profit NGO which operates more than 600 reproductive health centers in 38 countries, regarding service marketing training. Mark Rosenbaum's designation as a Fulbright Scholar is an accomplishment of note. The Fulbright Scholar Program is a highly prestigious program and is the U.S. government's flagship program in the international education arena. Fulbright Scholars teach or conduct research in a variety of academic and professional fields, including journalism, urban planning, music, philosophy, business, zoology, among many others. The Fulbright Program is sponsored by the United States Department of State, as well as the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Pam Smith, KPMG Endowed Professor of Accountancy, was named the Illinois CPA Society's 2008 Educator of the Year. A highly intense state-wide competition, the Illinois CPA Society's selection of Smith as the award winner is a testament to her talents and abilities. Pam Smith's award continues a long tradition in the NIU Department of Accountancy. Prior Illinois CPA Society Educator of the Year award recipients include NIU Accountancy members Don Kieso (Professor Emeritus, award recipient in 1988), Pat Delaney (Professor Emeritus, award recipient in 1991), Richard Baker (Professor Emeritus, award recipient in 1993), and Debra Hopkins (Director, NIU CPA Review Program, award recipient in 1997). The Illinois CPA Society (ICPAS) is a statewide, professional membership organization that serves students, educators, and related finance professional. Founded in 1903, ICPAS boasts more than 22,700 members and is the fifth largest CPA society in the nation.
Dan Weilbaker, McKesson Pharmaceutical Group Professor of Sales in the Department of Marketing, has received the Outstanding Educator Award for 2007 from the NIU Division of International Programs. The award is given to one NIU faculty each year whose contribution to international education has been sustained and deliberate. As Director of the Marketing Department's Professional Sales Program, the work conducted by Dan and faculty in the sales program has resulted in a highly-regarded national reputation for NIU's Professional Sales Program, which is the first collegiate program ever accredited by the Professional Society for Sales and Marketing Training. Embracing the significance of the global business market, Dan has expanded the NIU Professional Sales Program to include ongoing international alliances with universities in Ireland and Austria, respectively. To date, these alliances - which were formed nearly five years ago -- have facilitated ongoing exchange programs between the international students and American students and faculty. Dan's efforts to infuse global business awareness into the NIU Professional Sales Program has brought recognition not only to the Department of Marketing but to the NIU College of Business where global education is a priority. Read the Northern Today article.
Rick Ridnour, Enterprise Rent-A-Car Professor of Sales in the Department of Marketing, was selected by many NIU students as their favorite business professor in BusinessWeek's 2007 evaluation of best undergraduate business schools in the nation; a component of the BusinessWeek ranking process included a student survey that asked who they considered to be the best professors and why. Ridnour topped the list for students because of his "interactive and hands-on teaching style," which includes putting students through several role-play assignments that challenge students to execute each step in the sales process. These role-play assignments are videoed and broadcasted live to their classmates, who then evaluate their performance from another location. To read the full article, click here and in the BusinessWeek search box, type "Sealing the Deal."
A recipient of numerous teaching awards, Ridnour has been awarded the prestigious NIU Presidential Teaching Award, NIU's Excellence in Teaching Award (both college and departmental levels), and the 2006 NIU Student Choice Award. Rick Ridnour teaches the "Principles of Selling" course offered out of the Marketing Department's Professional Sales Program. The Professional Sales Program has the distinction of being the first collegiate sales training program in the world to be certified by the Professional Society for Sales and Marketing Training (SMT). SMT certification means that the college's sales program provides its students with curriculum, faculty expertise, training, and facilities on par with leading sales training programs used by corporations. (October, 2007)
Mark Rosenbaum, Assistant Professor of Marketing, is a recipient of the David W. Raymond Grant. Created by, and named after, one of the first members of the NIU Board of Trustees, the grant offsets costs associated with introducing new technologies in the classroom. Some of those new technologies allow Rosenbaum to package lecture and video material in such a way that his students can access the material online (stopping the lecture at any point to email questions) or download lectures to their iPods. (September, 2007) More >>
Teaching Achievements Prior to 2007