Michael A. Diamond

How Prepared are America's Colleges and Universities for Major Crises?

urricane Katrina and the September 11th terrorist attacks alerted university leaders and governing boards to the full danger of both natural and manmade disasters. Yet the lesson should not have been needed. Like their corporate counterparts, in recent years colleges and universities have been beset by a wide variety of crises that, although not as devastating as Katrina and 9/11, have seriously damaged their infrastructures, reputations, and prestige—for instance, the University of Colorado football scandal, the harassment of female cadets at the Air Force Academy, and the 1999 Texas A&M bonfire disaster that killed 12 students and injured 27 others. And then there are the widespread and perennial crises such as grade tampering; the alteration of key files and student records; computer hacking; major fires and explosions; student unrest; civil disturbances; confrontations, sometimes violent, between students of different political, religious, and ideological viewpoints; ethical breaches by top administrators, faculty, and students; the fraudulent use of tutors by student athletes; the stealing of body parts from university medical schools; and so on. by Ian I . Mitroff, Michael A. Diamond, and C. Murat Alpaslan PREPARED Are America’s Colleges and Universities for Major Crises? How

Accounting education, research and practice: After Enron, where do we go?

Abstract Recent accounting scandals have brought into question the efficacy of accounting education and research and the relationship of accounting educators to the profession. This paper calls for a comprehensive reassessment of accounting education, especially in terms of: undergraduate accounting programs; the development of an approach to accounting research and scholarship that is more closely focused on impact rather than purely methodological rigor; and the establishment of significantly more interaction between the profession and accounting educators. These changes, some of which could be painful and disruptive to the current structure of accounting departments, must begin to occur or we as accounting educators run the risk of being marginalized as the accounting profession tries to respond to the needs of society.