Kirk Wilcox still teaches a basic accounting course in the Executive MBA program and a graduate accounting theory course at UCCS.
October 15, 2011
WAYNE HEILMAN
THE GAZETTE, Colorado Springs
Just after receiving his doctoral degree in 1972, Kirk Wilcox got a baptism by fire when he arrived at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs to teach accounting at the then 7-year-old campus.
All UCCS academic programs at that time were controlled by administrators at University of Colorado’s Boulder campus. Wilcox was told by the dean of CU’s College of Business and Administration that the chairman of the accounting department in Boulder would help him set up an accounting program in the Springs. But it didn’t work out that way.
“I called (the chairman) three weeks before classes were to start, and he told me I was on my own and that he considered our program a direct competitor,” Wilcox said. “After spending three days wringing my hands, I decided that was a good thing because I could develop the program the way I wanted to.”
And develop the program he did. Wilcox, 71, stayed at UCCS for 39 years before retiring from full-time teaching in May 2010, and grew the program to include six faculty members. He is a founder of the University of Colorado’s Executive MBA program and taught accounting in Cambodia, Russia and Vietnam. Two of his former students have established the Kirk Wilcox Endowment Fund and have raised $500,000 to supplement the salary of an accounting faculty member who will hold a chair named for Wilcox when it is filled later this year.
Wilcox earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from the University of Arkansas, serving two years in between with the Army as part of his Reserve Officers’ Training Corps obligation. He joined the accounting firm now called PricewaterhouseCoopers after earning his master’s degree and spent three years there before deciding to switch careers to college-level teaching and entering the doctoral program at University of Texas. He was recruited to UCCS by the late information systems professor J. Daniel Couger.
Wilcox teaches a basic accounting course in the Executive MBA program and a graduate accounting theory course at UCCS and said he plans to continue both as long as he is asked to do so.
Question: What attracted you to teaching at the college level?
Answer: I like being in a classroom and I like performing. I never considered this job work. I grew up on a farm and know what work is. I never made it to full professor because I decided 10 to 15 years ago that I didn’t care about that. I wanted to teach and be of service to the campus. The deans (of the College of Business) allowed it, but it meant I couldn’t be promoted beyond associate professor. I am one of the few who hold the title associate professor emeritus for that reason.
Q: Why did you decide to teach rather than pursue a career with an accounting firm?
A: I started with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Houston with 15 others and I don’t think any of us stayed in public accounting. We ended up doing everything under the sun, from being president of a bank to a pastor of a church to the marketing director of a Fortune 500 company. It was a stepping- stone for all of us. I didn’t want to stay in public accounting because of the lifestyle — all of the travel and 60-hour work week meant I never saw my family. But I don’t think I would have become an associate professor if not for the three years I spent there because I was not a particularly good student. They made me a better student because my self-confidence changed immeasurably while I was there. They pushed me hard and I did well. I was one of the first promoted in my group and it gave me the confidence I needed to get my (doctoral degree).
Q: What was your favorite part of your job?
A: The Executive MBA program has always taken a lot of my time. I was called to be part of the program a few months before it was started and on the first day of classes, I remember the president of the university welcoming the students and then telling me “you’re on.” It has been my favorite thing over all of these years because the students are older and more motivated because we charge them a lot of money to be in the program. It is a 21-month program in which all of the students take the same classes, so you get a wide variety of student backgrounds and generally the students are high achievers. It is not unusual to have students with doctoral or medical degrees in the program.
Q: How did you get involved in teaching accounting in former Communist countries?
A: In 1995, the U.S. Agency for International Development had a banking program in Russia to help the banks there come up to Western standards. I taught a course in Western accounting standards. They had invited me to teach for two weeks in Siberia during November. The school wanted to invite me back, but they ended up closing the program. A year later, my wife and I did a mission trip to Cambodia and spent six months there teaching at the university in Phnom Penh. When I asked them what books the students were using, they took me to the campus library and they had four copies of my textbook. While I was there, they asked me to go to Vietnam for two weeks and lecture at a large bank in Hanoi on international accounting standards. What I found is they were already moving in that direction. One day an employee came to me and said she was studying accounting at the local university and showed me the textbook — it was the same one we were using here. I went back in 2003 for 4½ months to work for the Cambodia Department of Economics to help them set up the accounting profession there and ended up teaching accounting instructors. While I was there, I met the first Cambodian person who passed the international accounting test and found out he was one of my students from 1996.
Q: What advice would you give to someone starting out in accounting?
A: I tell my students to become an accountant they should go to work for the very best CPA (certified public accounting) firm they can get into, and if they have to leave Colorado Springs, so be it. They should stay three to five years and decide if that is the profession for them. You have to stay that long to find out if you like the profession. If you like it, you can stay, and if you do not, it will help you to find out what you want to do.
—
Questions and answers are edited for brevity and clarity. Contact Wayne Heilman: 636-0234 Twitter @wayneheilman Facebook Wayne Heilman
Just after receiving his doctoral degree in 1972, Kirk Wilcox got a baptism by fire when he arrived at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs to teach accounting at the then 7-year-old campus.
All UCCS academic programs at that time were controlled by administrators at University of Colorado’s Boulder campus. Wilcox was told by the dean of CU’s College of Business and Administration that the chairman of the accounting department in Boulder would help him set up an accounting program in the Springs. But it didn’t work out that way.
“I called (the chairman) three weeks before classes were to start, and he told me I was on my own and that he considered our program a direct competitor,” Wilcox said. “After spending three days wringing my hands, I decided that was a good thing because I could develop the program the way I wanted to.”
And develop the program he did. Wilcox, 71, stayed at UCCS for 39 years before retiring from full-time teaching in May 2010, and grew the program to include six faculty members. He is a founder of the University of Colorado’s Executive MBA program and taught accounting in Cambodia, Russia and Vietnam. Two of his former students have established the Kirk Wilcox Endowment Fund and have raised $500,000 to supplement the salary of an accounting faculty member who will hold a chair named for Wilcox when it is filled later this year.
Wilcox earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from the University of Arkansas, serving two years in between with the Army as part of his Reserve Officers’ Training Corps obligation. He joined the accounting firm now called PricewaterhouseCoopers after earning his master’s degree and spent three years there before deciding to switch careers to college-level teaching and entering the doctoral program at University of Texas. He was recruited to UCCS by the late information systems professor J. Daniel Couger.
Wilcox teaches a basic accounting course in the Executive MBA program and a graduate accounting theory course at UCCS and said he plans to continue both as long as he is asked to do so.
Question: What attracted you to teaching at the college level?
Answer: I like being in a classroom and I like performing. I never considered this job work. I grew up on a farm and know what work is. I never made it to full professor because I decided 10 to 15 years ago that I didn’t care about that. I wanted to teach and be of service to the campus. The deans (of the College of Business) allowed it, but it meant I couldn’t be promoted beyond associate professor. I am one of the few who hold the title associate professor emeritus for that reason.
Q: Why did you decide to teach rather than pursue a career with an accounting firm?
A: I started with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Houston with 15 others and I don’t think any of us stayed in public accounting. We ended up doing everything under the sun, from being president of a bank to a pastor of a church to the marketing director of a Fortune 500 company. It was a stepping- stone for all of us. I didn’t want to stay in public accounting because of the lifestyle — all of the travel and 60-hour work week meant I never saw my family. But I don’t think I would have become an associate professor if not for the three years I spent there because I was not a particularly good student. They made me a better student because my self-confidence changed immeasurably while I was there. They pushed me hard and I did well. I was one of the first promoted in my group and it gave me the confidence I needed to get my (doctoral degree).
Q: What was your favorite part of your job?
A: The Executive MBA program has always taken a lot of my time. I was called to be part of the program a few months before it was started and on the first day of classes, I remember the president of the university welcoming the students and then telling me “you’re on.” It has been my favorite thing over all of these years because the students are older and more motivated because we charge them a lot of money to be in the program. It is a 21-month program in which all of the students take the same classes, so you get a wide variety of student backgrounds and generally the students are high achievers. It is not unusual to have students with doctoral or medical degrees in the program.
Q: How did you get involved in teaching accounting in former Communist countries?
A: In 1995, the U.S. Agency for International Development had a banking program in Russia to help the banks there come up to Western standards. I taught a course in Western accounting standards. They had invited me to teach for two weeks in Siberia during November. The school wanted to invite me back, but they ended up closing the program. A year later, my wife and I did a mission trip to Cambodia and spent six months there teaching at the university in Phnom Penh. When I asked them what books the students were using, they took me to the campus library and they had four copies of my textbook. While I was there, they asked me to go to Vietnam for two weeks and lecture at a large bank in Hanoi on international accounting standards. What I found is they were already moving in that direction. One day an employee came to me and said she was studying accounting at the local university and showed me the textbook — it was the same one we were using here. I went back in 2003 for 4½ months to work for the Cambodia Department of Economics to help them set up the accounting profession there and ended up teaching accounting instructors. While I was there, I met the first Cambodian person who passed the international accounting test and found out he was one of my students from 1996.
Q: What advice would you give to someone starting out in accounting?
A: I tell my students to become an accountant they should go to work for the very best CPA (certified public accounting) firm they can get into, and if they have to leave Colorado Springs, so be it. They should stay three to five years and decide if that is the profession for them. You have to stay that long to find out if you like the profession. If you like it, you can stay, and if you do not, it will help you to find out what you want to do.
—
Questions and answers are edited for brevity and clarity. Contact Wayne Heilman: 636-0234 Twitter @wayneheilman Facebook Wayne Heilman
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