Teaching With Grace and Opportunity: Michelle McAllister, Ph.D.

By Rosa Hernandez

The Arizona CPA Foundation for Education and Innovation is proud to present this year’s Excellence in Teaching Award to Michelle McAllister, Ph.D. From her development of a data analytics course for accounting students to her research on professional skepticism, McAllister has acquired many achievements throughout her career. We’ll dive into her path to accounting, teaching style and research with a few stops along the way.

“I want everyone to succeed who wants to succeed,” says Michelle McAllister, Ph.D.
McAllister joined Northern Arizona University (NAU) in 2020. Arizona’s outdoor adventures lured her and her husband along with their eight-year-old to Flagstaff – not to mention the fact that McAllister would be teaching smaller classes and would be able to focus on her own research. Her path to Professor McAllister though, has been unique.

From Nuclear Engineering to Accounting

Originally from Denver, McAllister finished her undergrad in German with a minor in nuclear engineering at West Point. Right after graduating, she joined the army. She was a signal officer and supported communications for the 4th Infantry Division while deployed to Baghdad, Iraq.

Once she was out of the military, she knew she needed to upskill her business acumen because while her degree in German and nuclear engineering might prove useful in the army … in civilian life? Maybe not so much. So, she went back to school for her MBA.

In order to be accepted into her particular MBA program, she had to take a preparation course for accounting. That’s when she fell in love with accounting. She loved the idea that accounting is a skill and is measurable. She also looked forward to being able to make a difference for a firm or company even in an entry-level position because “if you’re an accountant, you learn how the system works from the beginning. You don’t have to be a C-suite executive to have an effect on the company.”

Small-Town Beginnings

After obtaining her MBA with a focus in accounting, she found herself in Kansas thanks to her husband who was stationed at Fort Riley, KS. She began working for a small firm conducting director exams for small banks across the state.

Working with small community banks, McAllister learned just how much impact the banks had on the farmers. Farmers worked with banks to pay for seed and equipment that they needed to be successful. By extension, McAllister’s firm was a part of their success. The banks benefited from guidance and feedback on how to improve their accounting for complex issues, such as estimating loan loss reserves. The relationship felt more like a partnership than a traditional auditor-client dynamic.

As McAllister continued to work, she saw herself pursuing teaching. Having done a few teaching-like sessions at her firm, she found she enjoyed sharing her knowledge with others, and she took the leap to pursue a Ph.D. at Florida State.

Chutzpah

While working on her doctorate, McAllister taught her first class.

It was a summer course – Intro to Financial Accounting, with 120 students. McAllister notes how challenging it was not only due to the size, but the fact that there was a mix of students – those who hadn’t passed it the first time around and those who were taking it to get ahead in their course work. McAllister remembers the difficulty of teaching so many students with varying levels of comprehension and ability, but she also says it was a pivotal moment in developing her teaching style.

McAllister is now known for her ability to connect with her students, helping them think deeper and understand the why behind accounting rules. She currently teaches two courses at NAU - ACC 356: Financial Accounting Reporting II and ACC 448: Accounting Analytics.

“I try to design my courses to allow my students a lot of opportunity and grace to succeed,” says McAllister.

So, how does she do it?

It could be her open-door policy, her determination to find the best and most cost-effective resources for students or her intentional practice of infusing experiential learning and data analysis into her courses.

Maybe it’s the fact that she plays alternative-pop-rock music like Fallout Boy before class. Whatever the reason, her students and colleagues sing her praises.

“Professor McAllister is a great professor for this course and provides good insight on how to use Stata/Tableau,” says one student through a course evaluation. “The best part of the course was her walking through Stata code in class with definitions of each code to help us in the assignments. The Harvard Review Cases were also interesting assignments that helped me understand the content in a real- life scenario.”

McAllister says she’s learned through her experiences that developing good communication skills and being able to think critically are incredibly important for individuals in accounting. McAllister says she tries to bring these two dimensions to her courses and teach her students why these are so important. She knows there will be times when her students will encounter difficult clients and even colleagues. Being able to not only work with numbers but also communicate what they mean will instill “chutzpah,” or confidence, in a student’s professional ability to take on whatever they encounter.

Jack of All Trades

Her accomplishments in the classroom are many, but so are those in her research.

“Importantly, the reviewers not only recognized the quality of her research but were also impressed by the usefulness and practicality of her work,” says Joseph Little, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance at NAU. “One reviewer stated that her work has ‘both practical impact in terms of helping to improve audit practice as well as societal impact as corporate fraud can cause significant investor losses.’ Another reviewer commented that ‘Her research ... has advanced our understanding of how improvements might be achieved in auditor performance.’”

McAllister calls herself a jack-of-all-trades researcher and says she has many interests, but she gravitates toward the behavioral aspects of accounting. She uses psychological theories to understand how auditors make judgments and decisions, with a particular focus on how they maintain professional skepticism. Her research aims to uncover the mental processes auditors use in their work and to identify ways to support sound, unbiased decision making.

McAllister has been published in many prestigious journals, including The Accounting Review, for two pieces, “Fraud Brainstorming Group Composition in Auditing: The Persuasive Power of a Skeptical Minority” and “Charitable Contribution Matching and Effort-Elicitation.”

What’s Next?

McAllister is currently working on a study that examines how accounting students develop professional skepticism as they progress through their coursework. She is also very excited to be working with NAU’s advisory council and alumni who help guide curriculum and make sure students are set up for success beyond the classroom.

“Overall, I’m really honored to win this award,” says McAllister. “It’s a reflection not just of me, but our accounting group at NAU and our hard work to make sure we’re doing what we can to make sure students succeed. And we do really appreciate the support of advisory council and alumni – it makes an enormous difference in the lives of our students.”

Michelle McAllister, Ph.D., will receive the Excellence in Teaching Award on May 8 during the ASCPA’s Annual Meeting and Awards Luncheon at the Westin Kierland. Congratulations, Michelle!