Singapore, 12 May 2023 (Friday) – Singapore Management University’s School of Accountancy (新加坡管理大学会计学院) Associate Professor Seow Poh Sun (副教授萧宝山) has received the prestigious American Accounting Association’s (AAA) Outstanding Accounting Educator Award 2023.

The Outstanding Accounting Educator Award is presented to educators with sustained contributions that have significantly impacted accounting education or accounting educators, with sustained and substantive contributions from a wide variety of academic institutions, and whose career contributions include educational innovation, excellence in teaching, publications, research guidance and mentorship to students and impactful service to the profession and/or academic community. The other recipient of the award is Prof Lilian F. Mills, Dean of the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. More information about the award and its criteria can be found here.

Associate Professor of Accounting (Education) and Associate Dean (Teaching and Curriculum), Seow Poh Sun says, “I am motivated to develop various digital learning tools as I often receive feedback from students that they would like to practise their coursework outside of the classroom. However, they want to do so in an engaging and interactive format, rather than via traditional paper assignments. While technology-enhanced learning can help to better engage students in their learning process, at the end of the day, teaching is really about motivating and inspiring students to be curious and excited about learning.”

Assoc Prof (A/P) Seow has won several international and local teaching research awards which reaffirms his efforts as an inspiring, passionate and creative educator. He was the first recipient of the inaugural European Accounting Association (EAA) Accounting Education Excellence Award in 2022 and was the first in Asia to receive the Howard Teall Award for Innovation in Accounting Education (First Prize) in 2020 from the Canadian Academic Accounting Association for his video-learning project to teach internal controls. He also received the American Accounting Association (AAA) Outstanding Instructional Contribution Award in 2018 for developing an online tutorial to teach database modelling, the AAA Jim Bulloch Award for Innovations in Management Accounting Education in 2017 and the AAA Innovation in Accounting Education Award in 2015.

Over the years, he helped to transform accounting courses through technology-enabled learning and experiential-learning pedagogy. He was the co-creator of world’s first mobile-gaming app in Accounting (SMU Challenge App) as well as the Red Flags Accounting Fraud Game in 2019 to help students learn how to identify accounting fraud. In addition, he has created three online e-Learning tutorials; Resource-Event-Agent (REA) Data Modelling, Business Process (Revenue Cycle) and Business Process (Expenditure Cycle) to teach Accounting Information System (AIS) courses. The REA online tutorial received the 2018 Outstanding Instructional Contribution Award from the American Accounting Association Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Section, in recognition of his development of original instructional materials. His work has been recognised extensively by the broader accounting education community, and he has a sustained track record of excellence along with international awards and scholarship outputs.

Dean of School of Accountancy, Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor Cheng Qiang, remarked, “The School is very proud of A/P Seow Poh Sun’s significant contributions to SMU and the accounting education pedagogy. As a recipient of the prestigious AAA Outstanding Accounting Educator Award 2023, we hope that he will continue to inspire his peers towards achieving innovative and cutting-edge practices in Accounting Education.

2023 Outstanding Accounting Educator Award Chair and Visiting Professor Accounting & Data Analytics at Washburn University, Gail Hoover King, said, “The Outstanding Accounting Educator Award is given to accounting faculty who demonstrate excellence and innovation in teaching and provide impactful service to the profession and academic community. The committee saw A/P Seow as someone who does all this and who has impacted accounting education and the profession. He is committed to excellence in teaching and uses innovative methods to connect and engage with his students. He is also an active reviewer and author of articles on accounting program development and the integration of data analytics to ensure students are workforce ready.  Additionally, he is involved in several professional organisations around the world and the committee is pleased to confer this Award to A/P Seow.” 

The award, which is sponsored by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Foundation, consists of a unique glass art piece, citation, and a $5,000 prize. This award will be presented at the Tuesday, August 8 plenary to be held in Denver, CO.

You can read more about the Award in the media release by AAA here.