Joint Projects Win Award

The AICPA and the American Accounting Association named the winners of the Joint AICPA/AAA Collaboration Award for 1999. Each year the associations honor academics and practitioners for an original project that advances the teaching and practice of accounting.

A joint team from Sonoma State University won for an implementation of the $KiddAccounts Children’s Money Program. The brainchild of CPA Steve Miksis (see “Doing Well by Doing Good,” JofA , Sep.98, page 51), $KiddAccounts introduces grade-school children to money management and the basic concepts of budgeting.

The team won the award by training college accounting students to teach $KiddAccounts in local elementary schools. “The project is a community service opportunity for the accounting students,” said Sonoma State accounting professor Sherri Anderson, the team leader. The students are faced with the real-life challenge of making financial information understandable and meaningful to their fourth- and fifth-grade clients, she said.

Achieving Balance: Facing the Challenges of a Professional Career, a project led by Dennis M. Hanno, associate dean of the Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, also received an award. The UMass project is a two-day conference that gives professors, students and professionals a forum to discuss the often conflicting demands of a professional career and a personal life.

The lead academic partner on each of the winning projects received $1,500. The team members all received certificates for their participation.