Acg 6805 Accounting Theory
ACG 6805 Accounting Theory
Fall 2015
Professor: Greg Trompeter
Office: 323 BA I
Phone: 407.823.2150
Office hours: Tuesday before class; as announced in class; and by appointment.
Required texts: Readings available as noted below.
- Trueblood cases from Deloitte. Available at:
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/About/university-relations/Deloitte-Foundation/0ac1264f0b0fb110VgnVCM100000ba42f00aRCRD.htm
- FASB codification—password to be handed out in class.
You may log in at http://aaahq.org/ascLogin.cfm
Objectives
This course examines:
- How accounting principles are established and monitored by standard setters.
- The strengths and weaknesses of various accounting methods and how applications of such methods affect decisions of users and preparers of financial statements.
- Current issues facing standard setters and the profession.
Grades will be determined as follows:
1. Class participation 45 possible points
2. Financial reporting timeline 5 possible points
3. Mini-cases (Trueblood, FASB, HBS or similar) 35 possible points
4. Problem sets and discussion question write-ups 30 possible points
5. Group presentation 10 possible points
6. Research paper 20 possible points
7. Final exam 5 possible points
150 possible points
NOTE: I assume that you should plan to invest—at a minimum—three hours of time outside of class for every credit hour in class. Thus, for this 3-credit class, you should plan to invest at least nine hours per week in preparation and homework—plus three hours in class.
Class participation. For each class, you must be prepared to respond to questions and contribute to discussion about the assigned readings. Obviously, regular attendance is essential for your grade since you will not be able to actively participate in classes that you do not attend. Keep in mind that, as an important and contributing member of this class, if you miss class, it reduces the amount that your classmates can learn from you and the amount you can learn from your classmates. You earn a significant part of your grade by being involved in the classroom discussion, but more importantly, you learn a significant amount by being involved in classroom discussion.
At the end of each class session, I will assess your participation and assign the points you earned during the class (between 0 and three points for each class; 0 if you do not attend, 1 if you attend but do not contribute, 2 or 3 points will be assigned depending on my assessment of your contribution to class discussion). At the end of the term, I will sum these points and that total will be used in assessing 25% of your final grade.
SOME THOUGHTS ON PARTICIPATION: In undergraduate classes, often most of the learning comes from the textbook and listening to the professor’s lectures. In fact, although I have never taught an undergrad class at UCF, it is my understanding that sometimes professors will include a small amount of “class participation points” as a component in the grade simply to encourage attendance and participation or to provide the professor with a bit of flexibility in assigning grades at the end of the term. (In my opinion, these are valid reasons.)
However, this class is different…
This is graduate education. There are dozens of smart people in the room—each one of which has done the readings, the problems and thought about the topics. Thus, we all (including me) have a lot to learn from each other. Much of the learning in this class will come from discussion with each other—presenting your thoughts in public, having others question them, defending your ideas, questioning others…. Ideally, I should be able to walk out of the room and a lively, relevant, on-point discussion would continue without me. (In the best of all worlds, it should start before class and continue at Wackadoos long afterwards.)