Short takes, notes and items of interest
Fellows Find Path to Success
¤ The SEC's Office of the Chief Accountant recently selected two
professional accounting fellows, who will study and help develop rule
proposals and work with both standard-setting bodies and registrants.
Serving two-year terms are Dominick J. Ragone, a senior manager in
PricewaterhouseCoopers' capital market advisory services group in New
York, and Scott A. Taub, an experienced manager in Arthur Andersen's
professional standards group in Chicago. CPAs who wonder what such a
position could do for their careers should note the fellowship program
boasts SEC Chief Accountant Lynn E. Turner as one of its alumni .
Business Valuation Rolls On
¤ The AICPA administered its second accredited-in-business
valuation (ABV) examination in November 1998; 329 of the 440
candidates who sat for it passed. The next exam will be November 1,
1999. More details about the ABV designation are available at
www.aicpa.org .
Honors for CPA/Teacher/Author
¤ The Federation of Schools of Accountancy gave Jan R. Williams,
CPA, PhD, the 1998 Joseph A. Silvoso/FSA Faculty Award of Merit, which
is co-sponsored by KPMG LLP. Williams is Ernst & Young Professor
of Accounting and associate dean in the College of Business
Administration, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and
president-elect of the AAA. Since 1993 he has written Harcourt Brace's
Miller GAAP Guide .
Online Winners
¤ AccountingNet, Great Plains and John Wiley & Sons
announced the winners of Account for Your Future scholarships—Brian
Durst (University of Wisconsin at Madison), Ted Sheen (University of
Tennessee) and Denesh Gunasekerampulle (North Dakota State
University). The program is run entirely online. Chosen from among
more than 600 student applicants worldwide, each winner gets $1,000.
Students are judged on academic record, communication skills and their
understanding of, and interest in, the relationship between accounting
and technology. For details, go to www.accountingnet.com .
He's True to His School
¤ CPAs are known for their skills in managing money, but Gordon
Ford is likely to be remembered for the money he gave away. He just
donated $10 million to his alma mater, Western Kentucky University,
and the grateful institution renamed its business school the Gordon
Ford College of Business. Additionally, the school has established a
new position, the Mattie Newman Ford Professor of Entrepreneurial
Studies, named in honor of Ford's mother, also a WKU graduate. Ford is
a former vice president of the Institute and a former editorial
adviser to the Journal. He was a founding partner of Yeager,
Ford and Warren in Louisville, Kentucky, which later merged with
Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers). In February, Ford
celebrated his 60th anniversary as a member of the AICPA .
