Accounting Team is Headed to National Competition
The team members – Dan Eshleman, Jing Lin, Michael Parisi, and Yanming Sun – have been preparing for this week since fall 2009. They worked through fall break to prepare their online entry in time for the Oct. 2, 2009, deadline and were notified November 20 that they were one of two finalists. They have been working since then to prepare their final report, which they will present live before a panel of judges including federal, state and local government leaders, corporate partners and CFOs at the annual conference. The other finalist team is from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. Both teams earned scholarships to attend AGA’s National Leadership Conference. The winning teams will be announced at the awards luncheon on the final day of the conference.
The best undergraduate accounting, financial management and business students in the country are invited to compete in the annual AGA-sponsored competition. Teams from 23 universities entered in October 2009. This year’s challenge was for the teams to work collaboratively to analyze and offer a written response to a case centered on how a U.S. city government implements a performance management system.
The students had a nearly 30-page government report to analyze and condense “into something that a person would want to read and be able to understand,” Lin said.
Cash prizes will be awarded to the winning team, and each student participant will receive a free one-year membership to AGA. The competition experience promises to challenge students’ moral reasoning, raise their awareness of the importance of government accountability and open doors to a future career in government, according to the AGA website.
Scott Showalter, teaching professor in the Department of Accounting, is the team’s faculty advisor.
