The Texas Society for Certified Public Accountants has recognized Naveen Jindal School of Management faculty member Mary Beth Goodrich as an Outstanding Accounting Educator of the Year. The society recognized her and other winners on a Sept. 10 Facebook Live virtual event in which she and one of the other winners participated.
Goodrich, a professor of instruction in the Accounting Area, won the award in the Large Colleges/Universities category. The accolade followed a UT Dallas President’s Teaching Excellence Award she received in late April. Goodrich attributed both awards to her teaching style, which involves adaptability and creativity, especially when it comes to working in various learning modalities.
A Virtual Learning Mentor
When the University had to abruptly switch over to a 100 percent virtual environment at the beginning of spring break in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Darren Crone, the assistant provost of educational technology services at UT Dallas, asked her to help mentor other faculty members in the technology of virtual learning environments.
“I had been doing it for years, and this was a way that I could contribute during a stressful, uncertain time,” Goodrich said. “Honestly, it helped keep me from getting anxious about COVID and all the changes. It gave me a task to do, and so I felt purposeful.”
On top of her regular teaching duties, she said she was fortunate to act as a sounding board for faculty members and students who were uncertain about the virtual environment, which was new to many of them.
An Online Community Builder
Goodrich said she has successfully incorporated online and asynchronous learning methods for years. In one of her undergraduate courses, Integrated Accounting Information Systems (ACCT 3322), students learn business-process transactions that feed accounting. In certain course components, students utilize enterprise resource planning software systems such as SAP.
“My class sizes just kept getting bigger and bigger, and I used to teach the lab in real time,” she said. “I might have 10% of the students keep up with me.” She ended up creating video demonstrations that students could view on their own and replay as needed.
“I’ve had really positive feedback from students about those demos,” she said. “Now we can use the lab time to further their understanding instead of my having to explain the system fundamentals.”
Goodrich said she also uses online discussion boards for all her classes on which students post problems on the board, along with a screenshot.
“It builds community,” she said. “The students can all look at the same problem and do some troubleshooting with one other.”
A Student Engagement Creator
Another way Goodrich enhances her courses is by offering students experiential learning opportunities such as projects.
“It helps level the playing field,” she said. “Students that are good test takers can just take the test and be done with it. Others who aren’t good test takers, can replace a bad test grade with a hands-on project.”
Besides the pandemic, other events, such as power outages across Texas last winter, forced Goodrich to be even more adaptable.
I’ve had students who got sick with COVID-19 or lost a parent because of it,” she said. “It was really horrible. When the ice storm happened, they couldn’t get online and were stuck at home. I tried to put in more flexibility.”
If students feel like you care, they end up doing better. Building those relationships is one of the reasons why we have so many students tell their friends to go to UTD.” — Mary Beth Goodrich
Goodrich began assigning homework problems for students whose grades needed bolstering. The students presented those problems in class and met with her beforehand to assure they understood them.
“I got to know them better that way,” she said. “Others, who didn’t want to present in class or had a conflict could make a video and then post it in the discussion board. I’m always trying to figure out creative ways to engage the students.”
One of Goodrich’s proudest accomplishments is having contributed to ProConnect, a community service initiative at the Jindal School in which graduate accounting students worked with companies to find a solution to an accounting problem.
“We’ve had over 1,000 students go through it doing pro bono accounting projects,” she said. “We did one project for the Texas Society for Certified Public Accountants.”
No matter the assignment or the project, Goodrich said she tries to go out of her way to stay engaged with all her students throughout the semester. When courses are online, doing so becomes even more important.
“If students feel like you care, they end up doing better,” Goodrich said. “Building those relationships is one of the reasons why we have so many students tell their friends to go to UTD. It actually is like a family. It gives me a lot of joy to help a student find a new job and start a career somewhere.”
Goodrich says she was shocked but gratified to get two awards in a single year. She said it helps confirm that she is moving in the right direction.
Other JSOM Honorees
Previous Jindal School winners of the same award are Jennifer Johnson, an associate professor of instruction, and Kathy Zolton, an associate professor of practice, both in the Accounting Area. Johnson won in 2017, and Zolton won in 2015. Liliana Hickman-Riggs, MS’93, who taught at JSOM in the Accounting Area from 1996 to 2011, won in 2004.
Other TXCPA Society honorees this year with JSOM ties include Art Agulnek, an Accounting Area faculty member from 2002 to 2018, now retired, with a lengthy service record statewide as well as in the Dallas chapter of the society. Agulnek was one of two recipients of the society Distinguished Member 2020-2021 award.
Alumna Lisa Ong, MS’14, a past chair of the Dallas chapter of the society, JSOM 2020 OWLIE award winner and 2017 Dallas Business Journal Minority Business Leader Award winner was named an Outstanding Committee Chairman. She leads the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Dallas chapter.
