Everyone is worried about the accounting pipeline. Fewer students are choosing the profession, employers question the readiness of new graduates, and promising young professionals are walking away. But what if the problem isn’t the students? What if it’s the way we’re introducing them to accounting in the first place? Dr. Tim Naddy challenges educators and industry leaders to rethink how accounting is taught, experienced, and ultimately valued. From teaching business decisions before debits and credits to bringing real human stories back into the classroom, this session explores practical ways academia and industry can work together to rebuild a profession worth joining and staying in.
Course ID: PIPELINE
The Pipeline Isn’t Broken. The Playbook Is.: Rethinking Accounting Education to Rebuild the Profession
Learning Objectives
- Analyze the disconnect between traditional accounting curricula, employer expectations, and early-career professional readiness.
- Compare conventional accounting instruction with approaches emphasizing cost analysis, decision-making, and practical business applications.
- Differentiate between curriculum content that builds immediate workplace readiness and content emphasizing advanced technical reporting.
- Apply curriculum redesign principles that integrate financial storytelling, business scenarios, and industry collaboration.
Major Topics
- The two-pronged pipeline challenge: graduate readiness and early-career retention
- The readiness reputation gap between accounting education and employer expectations
- Rethinking curriculum sequencing: business decisions before technical reporting
- Replacing memorization with practical financial decision-making and storytelling
- Applying the “First Three Years” lens to curriculum development
- Building stronger relationships between academia and industry
Advanced Preparations
None
Who Should Attend
Accounting educators, academic administrators, curriculum developers, CPA firm partners, CFOs, controllers, finance executives, and professional development leaders responsible for preparing, recruiting, developing, or retaining the next generation of accounting professionals.
Fields of Study
Business Management & OrganizationPrerequisites
Prior professional experience in accounting, finance, higher education, curriculum development, or organizational leadership. Participants should have a working familiarity with traditional accounting education, entry-level professional expectations, or talent development practices.