A number of the reports by academicians and practitioners in the United States have called for significant change in accounting education and an enhanced role for accounting history in curricula and research. However, the survey results reported in this paper suggest that achieving wider acceptance of accounting history presents some perplexing problems. Doctoral faculty, especially assistant professors, report less interest in accounting history than non-doctoral faculty. Although a majority of academicians consider accounting history research to be acceptable for promotion, tenure and hiring decisions and a valuable aid to teaching, practitioners, students, doctoral faculty strongly believe that it is of less value than mainstream empirical research in accounting. Most academicians perceive that research in accounting history is not as methodologically rigorous as other branches of accounting research.
Warren W. Nissley's intense dedication to public accounting led him to crusade for development of schools of accountancy and improvement of education of accountants. Nissley conceived and championed the Bureau for Placements, 1926–1932, which resulted in: public accounting firms recruiting college graduates and developing permanent professional staffs, publishing the first Institute career publication, academic and student awareness of public accounting, and improved quality of college programs and graduates. Nissley's campaign for independent schools of accountancy, 1928–1950, influenced the Institute's committee on education. Many elements of his recommendations may be recognized in the evolution and current developments of accounting education. However, Nissley would continue to express disappointment in the failure to establish separate professional, graduate level, schools of accountancy for public accounting.
Current developments in accounting education are the result of the vision and efforts of the early-pioneers in public accounting practice. Clearly these accountants wanted to elevate public accounting to a professional level. Their belief that collegiate accounting training was the foundation on which to build the profession of public accountancy led to the establishment of the New York School of Accounts. The New York School of Accounts was a success though it operated for only one year. It illustrated a commitment to education and undoubtedly influenced the later development of university and college accounting programs.
The Bureau for Placements sought to encourage qualified college graduates to choose public accounting as a career, to place them with public accounting firms, and to remove the problem of seasonal employment. During its six years of operations, the Bureau published and distributed to college students thousands of copies of the first Institute pamphlet on careers in public accounting, and it placed 250 college graduates with public accounting firms. As a result, the Bureau started, or at least accelerated, the trend by public accounting firms toward the hiring of college graduates.
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