The American Accounting Association is the professional organization for accounting professors. It is divided into seven regions (Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, Ohio, Southwest and Western).
The primary activity of each region is to hold an annual conference. My home region, Ohio, recently (May 10-12) held its annual conference in Covington, Kentucky, which is part of the Cincinnati, Ohio metropolitan area. The 2012 conference was the culmination of region president Wally Wood (U Cincinnati) and program chair Akhilesh Chandra (U Akron).
Wood and Chandra deserve a ton of credit for planning and guiding a terrific conference. If only the other regions had a conference as nice as Ohio’s.
Thursday, the first day of the conference, started out slowly for me. I-75 road construction in northern Cincinnati led my GPS to redirect me through six miles of side streets. Consequently, I arrived 20 minutes late. Veteran AAA staffers Dee S and Debbie G recognized me and were able to quickly complete the paperwork so I could start my conference day.
Dee and Debbie greet us at every AAA conference
The afternoon is devoted to two CPE (Continuing Professional Education) sessions. A tour of a local brewery is led by David Stott, BGSU. A session on positive applied psychology is led by Marsha Huber (Youngstown SU). The workshop I was to conduct has been cancelled for low attendance. I attended the Huber workshop and was introduced to her world of applied psychology. She has been studying and researching several areas that are unfamiliar to most accounting professors, however they have great relevance for both professional practice and accounting education. She taught about resilience, emotion, growth, game playing and influence in informal organizational networks. Although psychology causes me to break out in hives, I’ve offered to come on board and help write one of her papers.
John and Allie from McGraw-Hill
During breaks we head into the exhibitor’s hall for snacks and hot drinks. I like chatting with publishers representatives who show us books to consider using in our courses. At the right are John and Allie of McGraw-Hill. John told me that being a publishers representative was the next best job to being a professor.
From 4 pm until 10 pm, the main social activities took place. First, we all stood around and chatted at the welcome reception held in the hotel main lobby. Then we took a steamboat tour on the Ohio River. As the following collage shows, this time we sat around talking. And eating. My primary job at the dinner was to take photos.
Tomorrow is a very busy day.
Debit and credit – – David Albrecht
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