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Jenny McGarry DBA, CPA, was Monday’s speaker. Jenny is an Assistant Accounting Professor at Western Illinois University. This is her seventh year at WIU in the Quad Cities, third as full-time faculty. Jenny has taught classes in all the fundamental accounting topics (financial, managerial, and tax) but her primary teaching interest is taxation. She is the faculty advisor for WIU-QC Beta Alpha Psi, Society of Accountancy, and the faculty advisor for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program. Jenny graduated from North High School and currently lives on a farm near DeWitt, Iowa, with her husband and children.
Jenny joined us on Monday to provide an overview of Western Illinois University’s College of Business & Technology. The mission of the College of Business & Technology is to prepare students for professional careers and life-long learning in a globalize economy. The College provides an innovate and applied education in business and technology that fosters the highest level of academic standards, integrity and ethics among their constituents.
The WIU College of Business & Technology offers the following areas of study:
Agriculture
Accounting, Finance, Economics, and Decision Sciences
Departments recently merged to create the College of Business & Technology and Jessica Lin was appointed the interim director. Ms. Lin is an economics professor and has encouraged collaboration across the various areas to eliminate silos and allow the various areas to learn from each other.
Prior to 2020 they were the Department of Accounting, Finance, Economics, and Decision Sciences (AFED). The decision to merge was based on numerous factors, including budget constraints, retirements that resulted in significant loss of institutional knowledge in the accounting area (about 65 years) and the impacts of COVID-19.
Industry changes in the accounting area prompted them to embrace change. They are trying to break the stereotype that accountants spend their days sitting at a desk and crunching numbers. Accountants now have to know how to complete analysis and interpret data. The Bureau of Labor and Statistics continues to project growth in the area of accounting. Unfortunately, accounting enrollments nationwide are going down, including at WIU. There is more demand, but the supply continues to decline.
There is a changing skillset for accountants - there are three times as many pages in the IRS code, four times as many accounting standards and five times as many auditing standards compared to 1980. Even in 1980 there was a lot of technical knowledge required, but now students are hearing that you must have a lot of technical expertise to survive. Jenny would say you have to know how to use the tools but it’s not necessary to have everything memorized.
Jenny worked at Deloitte when she first entered the workforce. At that time, there was a lot of fear that entry level jobs would be outsourced to India. While some of them have been outsourced, it wasn’t as disruptive as everyone expected. There is another wave of that fear going through the industry now, but this time it is a fear that Artificial Intelligence will replace entry level positions. While there may be increased technology, the jobs will not go away. It’s more likely it will provide an opportunity for those who can read and understand the accounting standards, IRS code and auditing standards to learn and teach coding language. Knowing both will provide numerous opportunities.
Students don’t have to be experts, but they must know what tools are available and use auditing and fraud analytics and procedures to find trends, make predictions and identify outliers. The benefit of the department merger is that students have more opportunity to have a broader level of knowledge, and professors can collaborate more and provide a higher level of learning. Coding and AI are pieces of this, and then adding the use of data to complete analysis creates important components. All of these are embedded into their curriculum.
You can learn more about the college of business and technology at http:/www.wiu.edu/cbt.
It’s time to accept nominations for new Board members. Contact Dougal Nelson if you are interested in Sergeant at Arms, Club Secretary or another Board position. For those of you who chair a committee, please let Dougal know if you are willing to continue as Chair or would like to step down.
The last few snow events created challenges for snow removal. Mayor Acri gave an update on Moline’s efforts during these events. The city integrated Miller Excavating into the process for parking lots and sidewalks. Due to the amount of ice at the end of driveways, modifications were made to the agreement so they could support staff by removing ice at end of driveways.
Moline’s current snow removal policy is that the drivers stay on main routes until the snow stops and then they move into residential areas. The city recently introduced wing plows and these plows can’t go into residential areas. It also takes a few hours to change these blades compared to just a few minutes for other plow blades. The city also purchased a GPS system in 2019 so that residents could see where plows were located and if they were salting – the GPS system is yet to be activated. The council discussed this at the meeting on Tuesday, January 5, 2021. A video of the meeting is available at https://www.moline.il.us/CivicMedia?CID=9#player. Snow removal and the GPS system discussion begins at about one hour into the video.
Paul Plagenz, president/CEO of the Moline Foundation, shared that the foundation allocated more this past fiscal year than any year in the past. This was mostly due to COVID-19 and emergency response needs. $1.2 million was distributed, much of it to help health and human service organizations keep their doors open and continue to serve clients.
Dr. Rachel Savage, superintendent of Moline-Coal Valley schools, provided an update on the status of learning for students. Monday was a day of teacher learning and remote learning resumed on Tuesday, January 5, 2021. Remote learning continues through Friday, January 15, 2021, which marks the end of the first semester and the end of Q2. The plan is to return to blended learning for the 2nd Semester, which begins on Tuesday, January 19. Once they re-establish an in-person learning routine, they will be very attentive and look at having more in person learning when it’s deemed safe to do so. They can resume full-time in-person learning when the state moves to Phase 5.
Sergeant at Arms:
The next virtual Queen of Hearts raffle is planned for Monday, January 11, 2021. At last count there was $1,287 in the raffle, which would result in $643.50 going to anyone who won the raffle and drew the Queen of Hearts. If you are interested in participating, you can contact Laura Davis at Laura.Davis@midlanddavis.com for tickets. Tickets are $1 each or six tickets for $5. You can pay Laura for your tickets via Venmo at @Laura-Davis-136.
The Four-Way Test: Of the things we think, say, or do: Is it the Truth? Is it Fair to all concerned? Will it build Good Will and Better Friendships? Will it be Beneficial to all concerned?
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