ACCOUNTING HALL OF FAME 1997 INDUCTION
August 18, 1997 Dallas, Texas
Citation
THOMAS
JUNIOR
BURNS
CITATION written by Daniel L. Jensen The Ohio State University
read by
Andrew D. Bailey, Jr. University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign
This dedicated teacher of accounting was a mentor to countless undergraduate and graduate students and creatively shaped the university and organizations in which he worked.
He was born in Arena, Wisconsin in 1923, and grew up in a small town near Madison. He played football in high school and graduated at the top of his class. Following high school, he enrolled as a parttime student at the University of Wisconsin working fulltime for Gisholt Machine Company to assist financially his sister in attending college. In March 1943, he entered military sendee and served as a staff sergeant with the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. He returned to the University of Wisconsin in December 1945, where he completed a degree in accounting and American history at the University of Wisconsin. Following graduation in 1948 and a brief stint with the Wisconsin Department of Taxation, he became controller for Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and, in 1952, became a CPA. In addition to the responsibilities of controller, the post included an opportunity to teach the beginning accounting course. Teaching in this small liberal arts school kindled his interest in teaching and, in 1955, he entered the University of Michigan to pursue graduate work. He received an MBA degree in 1957. Following a year on the accounting faculty at Southern Illinois University, he entered the University of Minnesota where he earned a Ph.D. in accounting under the direction of Carl L. Nelson.
In 1963, he accepted a position at The Ohio State University as Associate Professor of Accounting. Except for brief visiting appointments at Stanford University, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of California — Berkeley, he spent the remainder of his academic career at Ohio State, where he was promoted to professor of accounting in 1967 and served as department chair from 1977 to 1981.
He was totally dedicated to Ohio State’s accounting students and programs. He founded the Accounting Honors Program in the late 1960s and served as its director until his retirement in 1994. Working with the Honors Program and the Omicron Chapter of Beta Alpha Psi, he molded an extraordinary educational experience for hundreds of accounting students. That experience included the Beta Alpha Psi National Student Seminar which he founded and which was named in his honor. He also served as director of Ohio State’s accounting Ph.D. program for over 20 years and mentored dozens of new entrants to accounting academe who remember him as an insightful and toughminded adviser. In the early 1970s, he revitalized The Ohio State Accounting Hall of Fame and served as its chair until his death in 1996.
In addition to papers in academic and professional journals, his scholarly publishing included several books and many edited conference proceedings. Several of these proceedings were instrumental in raising the importance of behavioral and social phenomena in accounting research. He was a strong proponent of innovation in accounting education, and for nearly 30 years McGrawHill published his Accounting Trends, an annual collection of innovative course outlines.
He served as national president of Beta Alpha Psi, director of education for the American Accounting Association, and president of the Academy of Accounting Historians. He made lasting contributions to the programs of all these organizations and received honors and awards from virtually every organization in which he became involved. These many honors include the Outstanding Accounting Educator Awards from both the American Institute of CPAs (1989) and the American Accounting Association (1992). He was also the first recipient of the Ohio Outstanding Accounting Educator Award.
He retired from Ohio State as Deloitte & Touche Professor of Accounting in 1994. Despite the limitations imposed by severe arthritis, he continued to advise students and colleagues and to work on matters related to Beta Alpha Psi and The Accounting Hal] oi Fame. He died on Januaiy 10, 1996. He is the 60th member of the Accounting Hall of Fame, Thomas Junior Burns.
U.S. Accounting History and Historiography Call for Papers
Critical and traditionalist historians have written exten-sively on U.S. accounting themes and topics during the past quarter century. It is in an effort to enrich and expand this outpouring that a special issue of Accounting, Business & Fi-nancial History will be dedicated. Papers are invited from au-thors of all nationalities, although topics should focus either specifically on U.S. developments or on comparative studies between the U.S. and other countries. The following listing of suggested subject areas is not intended to be all-inclusive.
• critical interpretations/reevaluations of U.S. accountingevents/practices
• professionalization movements and institutions
• findings from research into U.S. business records
• biographies of figures in U.S. accounting history
• gender studies on U.S. accounting practice
• the development of ethical standards in the U.S.
• distinctive aspects of U.S. accounting theory and methodology
• standard-setting processes
• themes from U.S. accounting education
• comparative studies, U.S. and abroad
• profession-state interfaces in the U.S.
• the role of technology in U.S. accounting history
• funding issues in U.S. accounting historiography
• paradigmatic themes in U.S. accounting historiography
This special issue will be co-edited by Richard K. Fleischman and Thomas N. Tyson. Anticipated publication date is Spring, 2000. Submissions should be made by 31 March 1999 to: Thomas N. Tyson, Department of Accounting, St. John Fisher College, 3690 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14618, U.S.A.
