Accounting Hall of Fame

The Accounting Hall of Fame is an award "recognizing accountants who are making or have made a significant contribution to the advancement of accounting" since the beginning of the 20th century.[1] Inductees are from both accounting academia and practice. Since its inception in 1950 at The Ohio State University, it has honored 93 influential accounting professors, professional practitioners, and government and business accountants from the United States and other countries.

One, two, or three awards are issued most years. There were four in 2000, 2018, and 2019. There were no inductees for 2016 or 2017, nor were there awards in 1966-67 or in 1969-73.

Selection to The Accounting Hall of Fame is intended to honor and recognize distinguished service and contributions to the progress of accounting in any of its various fields. Evidence of such service includes contributions to accounting research and literature, significant service to professional accounting organizations, wide recognition as an authority in some field of accounting, advancement of accounting education, and public service. A member must have reached a position of eminence from which the nature of his or her contributions may be established.

Now hosted by the American Accounting Association (AAA), The Accounting Hall of Fame was established in 1950 at The Ohio State University (OSU). In 2017, OSU entered into an agreement with the American Accounting Association to transfer the authority to host of the Hall of Fame to the AAA. Since 2017 The Accounting Hall of Fame Transition Team, appointed by the AAA Board of Directors and chaired by Past-President Bruce Behn, who convenes the electors and administers the process has made the selections.

Induction of the 2019 members was held at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association, in August, in San Francisco, CA.

Overview

The Hall of Fame describes: "While selection to the Hall of Fame is intended to honor the people so chosen, it is also intended to be a recognition of distinguished service contributions to the progress of accounting in any of its various fields. Evidence of such service includes contributions to accounting research and literature, significant service to professional accounting organizations, wide recognition as an authority in some field of accounting, advancement of accounting education, and public service. A member must have reached a position of eminence from which the nature of his or her contributions may be judged."

"Election to The Accounting Hall of Fame is perhaps the only longstanding national award for accountants -- and probably the only international one as well -- in which both academic and practicing accountants vie for the same award."[2]

Induction into The Accounting Hall of Fame is one of the higher honors available within accounting academia. The only comparable awards in the United States may be two awards of the American Accounting Association: the Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award Award[3] which has been received by many of the Hall of Fame inductees, and the rare Seminal Contributions to Accounting Literature Award, which has only been awarded seven times.[4] The sublist of inductees who are accounting academics, thus, includes many of the most notable accounting academics.

An accounting of 36 inductees during the first 26 years of the award identifies that 20 were chiefly active in public accounting (including 6 who were founders of major public accounting firms), 10 were university professors, 4 were government officials (including 3 chief accountants of the SEC), and that 2 were most prominent in industry.[5]

The Accounting Hall of Fame Pin

The recipients of the award are otherwise highly decorated: 21 of the first 36 are recipients of the AICPA's highest honor, its Gold Medal award; 15 received the Alpha Kappa Psi Accounting Foundation Award; at least 15 received honorary degrees, one was knighted in England; and one received "the highest honor the U.S. federal government can bestow upon a career civilian employee, the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service."[6]

In a keynote speech at the 50th anniversary of the Hall of Fame, hosted by The Ohio State University and The Academy of Accounting Historians, Lynn Turner, then chief accountant of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (Washington D.C.), noted the influence of George O. May and numerous other recipients upon the evolution of accounting and auditing practice and principles "that makes our system of accounting the greatest in the world".[7]

The award has always been intended to honor world-level contributions. The majority of recipients have been Americans, perhaps reflecting the historic leadership of America in the development of accounting regulations and in formal accounting research as much as reflecting the U.S.-based hosting of the award. Accounting standards co-evolved with the New York Stock Exchange and other public financial markets which have a scale and history in the U.S. not matched by public markets in most other countries. Englishman Sir Arthur Lowes Dickinson was one of the earliest inductees, honored in 1951 for establishing principles of consolidated accounting for conglomerate companies such as U.S. Steel while he was senior partner of Price-Waterhouse in the U.S. during 1901 to 1913. The first Canadian inducted was Howard Irwin Ross in 1977. The first woman inducted was Katherine Schipper in 2007.

Inductees

As of 2019, there are 101 inducted members of The Accounting Hall of Fame:[8]

AHoF number	Year	Member
1	1950	May, George Oliver
2	1950	Montgomery, Robert Hiester
3	1950	Paton, William Andrew
4	1951	Dickinson, Arthur Lowes
5	1951	Hatfield, Henry Rand
6	1952	Sells, Elijah Watt
7	1952	Stempf, Victor Hermann
8	1953	Andersen, Arthur Edward
9	1953	Andrews, Thomas Coleman
10	1953	Sprague, Charles Ezra
11	1953	Sterrett, Joseph Edmund
12	1954	Blough, Carman George
13	1954	Broad, Samuel John
14	1954	Sanders, Thomas Henry
15	1954	Scovill, Hiram Thompson
16	1955	Brundage, Percival Flack
17	1956	Littleton, Ananias Charles
18	1957	Kester, Roy Bernard
19	1957	Miller, Hermann Clinton
20	1958	Finney, Harry Anson
21	1958	Foye, Arthur Bevins
22	1958	Perry, Donald Putnam
23	1959	Eaton, Marquis George
24	1960	Stans, Maurice Hubert
25	1961	Kohler, Eric Louis
26	1963	Barr, Andrew
27	1963	Morey, Lloyd
28	1964	Grady, Paul Franklin
29	1964	Mason, Perry Empey
30	1965	Peirce, James Loring
31	1968	Bailey, George Davis
32	1968	Carey, John Lansing
33	1968	Werntz, William Welling
34	1974	Trueblood, Robert Martin
35	1975	Spacek, Leonard Paul
36	1976	Queenan, John William
37	1977	Ross, Howard Irwin
38	1978	Mautz, Robert Kuhn
39	1979	Moonitz, Maurice
40	1980	Armstrong, Marshall Smith
41	1981	Staats, Elmer Boyd
42	1982	Miller, Herbert Elmer
43	1983	Davidson, Sidney
44	1984	Benson, Henry Alexander
45	1985	Gellein, Oscar Strand
46	1986	Anthony, Robert Newton
47	1987	Defliese, Philip Leroy
48	1988	Bedford, Norton Moore
49	1989	Ijiri, Yuji
50	1990	Horngren, Charles Thomas
51	1991	Chambers, Raymond John
52	1992	Solomons, David
53	1993	Baker, Richard Thomas
54	1994	Sprouse, Robert Thomas
55	1995	Cooper, William Wager
56	1996	Beaver, William Henry
57	1996	Bowsher, Charles Arthur
58	1996	Kirk, Donald James
59	1997	Burns, Thomas Junior
60	1997	Burton, John Campbell
61	1998	Wyatt, Arthur Ramer
62	1999	Cook, Jay Michael
63	1999	Groves, Ray John
64	2000	Demski, Joel Stanley
65	2000	Haskins, Charles Waldo
66	2000	O'Malley, Shaun Fenton
67	2000	Skinner, Ross Macgregor
68	2001	Dopuch, Nicholas
69	2001	Edwards, James Don
70	2002	Zeff, Stephen Addam
71	2003	Edwards, Edgar O.
72	2003	Bell, Philip W.
73	2003	Leisenring, James J.
74	2004	Beresford, Dennis Robert
75	2004	Feltham, Gerald Albert
76	2004	Vatter, William Joseph
77	2005	Baxter, William Threipland
78	2005	Jenkins, Edmund Lowell
79	2006	Kaplan, Robert Samuel
80	2006	Sterling, Robert Raymond
81	2007	Schipper, Katherine
82	2008	Hopwood, Anthony
83	2008	Schuetze, Walter P.
84	2009	Dyckman, Thomas
85	2009	Ball, Raymond John
86	2010	Walker, David Michael
87	2011	Previts, Gary John
88	2011	Storey, Reed Karl
89	2012	Herz, Robert
90	2013	Tweedie, David Philip
91	2014	Kinney, William Rudolph
92	2014	Briloff, Abraham Jacob
93	2015	Ohlson, James A.
94	2018	Anderson, George David
95	2018	Barth, Mary Elizabeth
96	2018	Kirtley, Olivia Faulkner
97	2018	Stringer, Kenneth Wilson
98	2019	Campfield, William Louis
99	2019	Nicholson, J. Lee
100	2018	Palmrose, Zoe-Vonna
101	2019	Penman, Stephan Harland

References

1. Burns and Coffman, 342.
2. Jensen
3. http://aaahq.org/Education/Awards
4. "Seminal Contributions to Accounting Literature". American Accounting Association.
5. Burns and Coffman, 344.
6. Burns and Coffman, 346.
7. Turner
8. "MEMBERSHIP IN HALL". ACCOUNTING HALL OF FAME. Fisher College of Business. Retrieved 27 November 2017.

Further reading

• Burns, Thomas J., and Edward N. Coffman. "The Accounting Hall of Fame: A Profile of the Members". Journal of Accounting Research (Autumn 1976): 342-47.
• Burns, Thomas J., and Edward N. Coffman. "Accounting Hall of Fame," History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia," edited by Michael Chatfield and Richard Vangermeersch. New York: Garland Publishing. pp. 9–10.]
• Jenson, Daniel L. "Historical Notes on the Accounting Hall of Fame"

External links

• American Accounting Association, official site