Development of an Integrated Course in Accounting: A Focus on Environmental Issues

Abstract

Environmental issues provide a unique, timely, and important focus for an integrated course in accounting and demonstrate how accounting information is, or can be, used to support corporate environmental strategy and assess environmental performance. This type of course offers an opportunity to add value to the educational experience of both accounting and nonaccounting majors. In this article, we describe the development and structure of one such course, discuss our experiences in offering it, and summarize the perceived benefits and difficulties associated with this endeavor. Overall, we conclude that, despite some challenges in designing and offering this type of course, the benefits are significant from both instructional and professional development points of view. Furthermore, the course attempts to achieve several of the objectives laid out a decade ago by the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC) and more recently, by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in its forward-looking CPA Vision Project. Perhaps most importantly, this course helps to counter the tendency, by both students and faculty, toward disciplinary insularity, a concern prominently noted by Patten and Williams (1990).

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