Accounting Professor of the Year 2021
This year, SCUAA is pleased to present the Accounting Professor of the Year award to Professor Jane Ou. This award is voted on annually by graduating seniors in the Accounting Association. Professor Ou has been a staple amongst the Accounting department, winning many teaching awards since she began teaching at Santa Clara in 1985. Ultimately, the fact that Professor Ou successfully overcame the virtual teaching challenges presented during the past year, we are especially grateful for her continued positive impact on her students both in and out of class.
This past year has truly exemplified Professor Ou’s hard work and dedication to teaching. Over the summer, Professor Ou virtually took courses to familiarize herself with Zoom in order to create the most optimal learning experience for her students. In those classes, she learned that in order to teach a successful class when not face-to-face, it is still very important to foster a close-knit classroom community. She did this by asking students to submit video introductions in the beginning of the quarter while also sharing her interests and passions with the class. These small actions along with there never being a technological mishap during class certainly was not overlooked by her students!
Under her instruction, Professor Ou’s students learned far more than just advanced financial accounting topics in the classroom. For example, utilizing her research and teaching interests in financial accounting, Professor Ou challenged her students to think beyond classroom examples and how these concepts would apply in the real world, like through the lens of mergers and acquisitions. This sort of real-world experience incorporated into her teaching truly helped students get a better idea of what their profession will look like after college. Professor Ou’s passion for teaching Accounting is most notably apparent in the way she creates a mutual level of respect in the classroom. Advanced financial accounting is known to be challenging, but the way Professor Ou creates a safe space for her students to ask questions, along with her positive and upbeat attitude when teaching, she is always willing to help students master the concepts presented in class. Keeping all this in mind, along with her countless other teaching awards and publications, Professor Ou’s reputation here at Santa Clara certainly does not go unnoticed, and she unquestionably deserves this year’s Accounting Professor of the Year award.
(Written by Andrew Amerio, SCUAA Junior Officer, Class of 2023)