2019 Alumnus of the year: Jim Sepe
This year’s annual Accounting Scholarship and Awards banquet was held on May 23rd in Benson Center. At the event, Jim Sepe, Class of 1969, received the SCU Accounting Alumnus of the Year Award.
After graduating from SCU, Jim earned an MBA from UC Berkeley followed by four years in public accounting. He then enrolled in the University of Washington’s Ph.D. program and joined the Accounting faculty at SCU in 1979 where he would remain until retirement in 2018.
Jim’s research interests concerned financial reporting issues and the use of financial information by capital markets. He published articles in various journals, including The Accounting Review, the Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, and the Journal of Accounting Education. He was a recipient of the American Accounting Association’s Competitive Manuscript Award for his 1981 article on the impact of the FASB’s general price level proposal on the securities markets.
During his time at SCU, Jim taught many different financial accounting courses, primarily intermediate accounting in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. He received numerous awards for his teaching excellence and innovations in the classroom, including SCU’s Brutocao Award for Excellence in Curriculum Innovation. He is also very proud of his Intermediate Accounting textbook published by McGraw-Hill. He was a co-author over a period of 24 years and eight editions of the text that helped hundreds of thousands of accounting students throughout the world master intermediate.
Jim served as the Chair of the Accounting Department for nine years. He was instrumental in creating the Accounting Department Advisory Board, the Awards Banquet, and the Accounting & Information Systems major.
Jim and his wife Barbara (69’) have three children who are also ex-Broncos, Kristina (95’) Matt (98’) and Dave (01’). Travel, skiing at Lake Tahoe, and three grandchildren keep Barbara and Jim busy in retirement. Jim also serves as an Emeritus member of the Accounting Department Advisory Board.