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Accounting & Information Systems Department

Minard Hall, Room 403 Phone: (701) 231-5845
December 2007

Comments from the Head

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Accounting & Information Systems Department Newsletter. One of my goals is to open
and maintain lines of communication between the department and its graduates, recruiters, employers, and other constituencies.
This annual newsletter is one of the mediums to be used to keep in touch with you and share with you what is happening with
your program degree alma mater.

Let me begin this edition by introducing myself. My name is Bud Bowlin, and I have been the Head of the Accounting &
Information Systems Department since J anuary 2007. My previous teaching experience includes stints at the Air Force
Institute of Technology, Clarkson University, and the University of Northern Iowa. I have also taught as a visiting professor at
the University of Warwick (United Kingdom), the University of Klagenfurt (Austria), and in Hong Kong. My teaching interest
is primarily cost and managerial accounting, and my research has focused on defense industry issues and gender equity in
senior management compensation. Prior to joining academia, I was in the Air Force for 20 years and retired in 1992. While in
the Air Force, I served in Germany, Greece, Guam, Turkey, and the Pentagon among stateside locations. I have a PhD in
accounting from the University of Texas at Austin.

It is truly a pleasure and an honor for me to be here. When I interviewed for the position, I was impressed by the quality of the
faculty. The faculty is on the cutting edge of teaching material that our graduates need to be successful in their chosen career
field. For example, our faculty is using Microsoft Dynamics in their classroom as a tool to illustrate enterprise resource
planning (ERP). Faculty members teaching financial accounting are using the Financial Accounting Research System (FARS)
to introduce students to researching an accounting issue. Written and oral communication skills are integrated across the
curriculum. You will read more about the excellence being maintained by the accounting and management information
systems (MIS) programs and faculty in other parts of the newsletter. The accounting and MIS programs are in the vanguard for
preparing our graduates to participate in society and their chosen work disciplines.

The NDSU accounting and MIS students are among the best that I have been associated with over my academic career.
NDSUs accounting graduates have performed excellently on the CPA exam. The markets for our graduating accounting and
MIS students are truly outstanding at this time and have never been better. Consequently, we are on the look out for new
students in our programs. If you know of students that are looking for a quality education in accounting or MIS, please refer
them to NDSU.

The Accounting & Information Systems Department was created as a subunit of the College of Business in fall 2000. The
department and its programs continue to grow and gain recognition for excellence. That is the result of the efforts of many
peoplefaculty, staff, students, graduates, recruiters, employers, and other supporters of our programs. To all of you, I say
thank you for your support in making the accounting and MIS programs the quality programs that they are.

I hope you find this newsletter of interest and that it keeps you informed of our various activities. If you have something that
you would like to share with me, the department faculty, and/or classmates, please do not hesitate to let me know about it.

Regards,



Bud Bowlin
Professor and Head
Accounting & Information Systems Department
North Dakota State University
(701) 231-8970
bud.bowlin@ndsu.edu
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Mission Statements

The mission statements for the university, college, and department are listed below. These statements guide our decisions and
efforts and are instrumental in focusing us on our objectives.

North Dakota State University Mission Statement:

With energy and momentum, North Dakota State University addresses the needs and aspirations of people in a changing world
by building on our land-grant foundation.

College of Business Mission Statement:

The mission of the College is to provide high quality instructional programs while serving the economic development needs of
the state, region and global community through teaching, research and service.

Accounting & Information Systems Department Mission Statement:

The mission of the Accounting & Information Systems (AIS) Department is to provide high-quality accounting and
management information systems programs in an educational environment that focuses on the needs of students and external
stakeholders. To support this mission, we are committed to excellence in teaching; research and scholarly activities; and
service to our College, University, and community. We prepare our students by providing a curriculum that emphasizes core
competencies needed in a business environment; providing opportunities for relevant work experience before graduation; and
providing opportunities for interaction among students, faculty, and practitioners.


Faculty Profiles

Karl Altenburg Dr. Altenburg is an assistant professor in MIS. He joined the NDSU faculty in 2001 and began
serving in the Accounting & Information Systems Department in 2002. He teaches Management Information Systems, Data
and Telecommunication Administration, and Decision Support and Intelligent Systems. Dr Altenburgs research interests
include multi-agent computer simulation models, mobile ad hoc networks, and sensor networks. His recent academic
accomplishments include serving as an associate reviewer for the journal Electronic Markets and co-authoring a paper in the
proceedings of the 2007 Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium. Dr Altenburg recently completed several months of
leadership and logistics training as a company commander in the North Dakota Army National Guard.

J ames Clifton Mr. Clifton, a senior lecturer in accounting, has been working at NDSU on a full-time basis since
August of 1998. He currently teaches Individual Taxation, Business Taxation, Government & Not-for-Profit Accounting, and
Advanced Fraud Examination. His research interests are in the fraud area. He has co-authored two articles on fraud issues, a
case, and is currently working on a chapter for a fraud book for libraries. Since he is a co-advisor for the NDSU Accounting
Club and runs the NDSU Volunteer Individual Tax Assistance (VITA) site, service is a large part of his responsibilities.

Donna DietzIn her 19 years of teaching at NDSU, Dr. Dietz, an assistant professor, has taught both financial and
managerial accounting courses. She currently teaches senior and MBA management accounting courses and an accounting
survey course for non-business majors. Her research interests include healthcare financial management, fraud, and financial
literacy. She and Dr. Snyder have received a grant from the Institute of Management Accountants to study internal controls in
organizations. They recently had a paper accepted for publication in Research in Healthcare Financial Management on fraud
in healthcare organizations. Dr. Dietz was recently invited to present her work on financial literacy at the Colloquium for
Change in Accounting Education and received honorable mention for the Bea Sanders/AICPA Innovation in Teaching Award
for innovation in teaching in the first course sequence in accounting. She and Dr. Barbara Eide (University of Wisconsin-
LaCrosse) had a paper published in the Journal of Accounting and Finance Research on evaluating physician productivity.

J oe Latimer Mr. Latimer, an instructor in MIS, arrived at NDSU in 1997. His primary teaching areas of interest are
information technology management, system and server administration, expert systems and decision support systems to support
managerial decision making, business performance management, and collaborative technologies to support distributed
asynchronous group decision making. He was instrumental in the development, installation and support of the Group Decision
Center at NDSU and is currently aiding in the transition from same-time, same-place meetings to distributed, asynchronous
meetings. He led the development of an intern supported ERP/CRM infrastructure based on Microsoft Dynamics for the
College of Business.



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J anice Glatt Ms. Glatt started full-time teaching at NDSU in 1985 and is currently a senior lecturer in accounting.
She teaches elements of accounting, intermediate accounting and financial planning. She is a Certified Public Accountant
(CPA) and has passed the exam to become a Certified Financial Planner. Her interests are in estate and retirement planning.
She has received the Apple Polisher Award three times (presented by the Bison Ambassadors), has been selected a Preferred
Professor twice, and Outstanding Academic Advisor (Mortar Board); received the College of Business Teaching award, and
the Eisele Teaching Fellow (see Department News below). She owned her own business before joining the faculty.




Maggie Jorgenson Ms. J orgenson has been an accounting lecturer on the NDSU faculty since fall 2004. She
primarily teaches Elements of Accounting I (principles of financial accounting) and Elements of Accounting II (principles of
managerial accounting). Currently, she is a board member of the NDSCPA Foundation. The Foundation raises money for, and
distributes, CPA exam scholarships. She is also active in the North Dakota State CPA society and has served on several
convention planning committees. Currently, she is a board member of the North American Accounting Society and has served
as moderator and participant on several panels during their annual meetings.

Bonnie Klamm Dr. Klamm, an associate professor, started her NDSU career in fall 2000. She teaches an upper-
division accounting information systems (AIS) course and a lower-division managerial accounting principles course. She
integrates conceptual data modeling in the AIS course along with Microsoft Business Solutions Dynamics GP. Dr. Klamms
research interests cover two areas: accounting information systems and pension funding and expense. Within accounting
information systems, current research includes the examination of internal control reports as required by the Sarbanes Oxley
Act of 2002. The data are from two sources: Research Insight and AuditAnalytics databases. The AuditAnalytics database
was funded in 2007 by an Institute of Management Accountants grant. Within the pension area, current research includes the
analysis of pension funding and pension expense using IRS Form 5500 data and Research Insight database.

Lori Olsen Dr. Olsen is an assistant professor of accounting and joined the faculty at NDSU in August of 2006. Her
interests are in the area of financial accounting and accordingly, she teaches Advanced Accounting, Intermediate II and
Elements of Accounting I (principles of financial accounting). Her research addresses financial accounting issues by
examining when firms might adopt a particular accounting convention or how accounting information is valued by investors.
Dr. Olsen has had articles published in The CPA Journal, Journal of Accounting Education and Journal of Accounting,
Auditing and Finance. Recent presentations were made at the European Accounting Associations annual conference and the
Midwest Accounting Associations annual meeting. Dr. Olsen also enjoys her roles as co-advisor to NDSUs Accounting Club
and faculty advisor to Beta Gamma Sigma.

Herbert Snyder Dr. Snyder has been an associate professor of accounting and information systems at NDSU since
2003. He teaches in the areas of fraud examination and auditing and his research is concerned primarily with nonprofit fraud,
ethics for auditors and accounting for intellectual capital. He received the Hubbard Award (along with co-author J ames Clifton)
for best fraud paper from the ACFE in 2006, and his book concerning fraud investigation and prevention in libraries was
published in 2007. Before joining the faculty at NDSU, he was a Fulbright Scholar in the Ukraine and taught at Indiana
University. Prior to entering the academic world, he worked as a fraud investigator for New York State and as an intelligence
analyst for the U.S. Army.


J anice Glatt
Teaching Elements
of Accounting
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Tom Dowdell Dr. Dowdell, an assistant professor, joined the North Dakota State University Accounting &
Information Systems faculty in August 2003. His teaching and research interests are in financial accounting and auditing. Dr.
Dowdells two current research projects are studying whether high-technology company acquisitions properly reflect
allocations to in-process research projects and predicting contributions to defined-benefit pension plans.

Limin Zhang Dr. Zhang is an assistant professor of MIS and joined the Department of Accounting & Information
Systems in 2006. Her teaching interests include database design, information systems management, and principles of
management information systems. Her primary research interests are context-based web information retrieval, competitive
intelligence search process modeling, and software cost allocation. She is a member of the Association of Information Systems,
and has published her research in Lecture Notes of Computer Science and various conference proceedings.

Student Club Activities

Student clubs are important contributors to the success of the departments programs and students. They offer opportunities for
students to learn about careers, jobs, interviewing techniques, etc. that are outside the scope of class room activities. There are
two student clubs within the Accounting & Information Systems Department.

Accounting Club

The Accounting Club promotes the accounting discipline, accounting major, internships, and networking opportunities. It helps
students understand what they can expect for different career paths. The club fosters interaction with NDSU Alumni and
upperclassmen. The club meets monthly and has presentations that relate to careers in accounting. Specific activities planned
for the year are: Meet the Firms which is a career fair that gives students a chance to meet with many accounting firms at one
location on campus, a fall banquet, a community service project which supports the Ronald McDonald House, a Christmas
party, and a trip to Minneapolis to meet with public accounting firms and corporate accounting organizations. The faculty
advisors are Professors Lori Olsen and J ames Clifton.



MIS Club

The MIS Club promotes connecting students with potential employers. They have monthly meetings which are open to all
majors. It helps students keep up on new internships available, has speakers from various companies who talk about MIS
careers, and has tours at various businesses. Recent activities have included a tour of Microsoft in Fargo, a tour of Alien
Technology, a presentation by Federated Insurance, working at the Engineering & Tech Expo (connects students with
employers), and a Twin Cities trip to meet with firms (such as Cargill) that hire MIS graduates. The faculty advisor for the
club is Professor J oe Latimer.








Meet the Firms
Fall 2007
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Department News

Eisele Teaching Fellow This fellow was awarded for the first time in fall 2007. The objective of this honor is to recognize
the importance placed upon teaching in the College of Business. It is presented to a College faculty member who demonstrates
the characteristics of an outstanding teacher in honor of Dr. Fred Eisele who was on the College of Business faculty from 1971-
1990. It is a pleasure to share with you that Professor J anice Glatt was announced as the first recipient of the Eisele Teaching
Fellow. It is exciting to have a faculty member recognized for her significant contributions to the students, department, and
college. The criteria for selection reflect the multiple roles of the teacher - classroom preparation and success, advising,
individual interaction with students outside the classroom, career guidance, etc. Appointment as an Eisele Teaching Fellow is
for a three-year term. Congratulations Professor Glatt!

J ill Blazek Retires A long-time member of the Accounting & Information Systems Department, J ill Blazek, retired last
summer after 32 years of service to NDSU. J ill was the Academic Assistant in the department and many of you had contact
with her when registering for classes, declaring a minor, applying for the professional programs, and interacting with the
department in many other ways. We wish J ill health and fun in her retirement. J ills expertise and knowledge of the
universitys systems will be missed by the faculty and students.

Welcome Karen J ohnson To replace J ill, we welcome Karen J ohnson as the departments new Academic Assistant. Prior to
joining the department, Karen worked at the NDSU Office of Admission and in the Provosts Office. We are excited to have
Karen as part of our team!

Distance Learning Distance learning is becoming more in demand. Consequently, the department is in the process of
developing on-line courses. The first class to be developed for on-line presentation is Elements of Accounting II (principles of
managerial accounting). Development of the class will take place during spring 2008 with the plan that it be offered on line for
the first time in fall 2008. Other courses to be developed for on-line presentation are Elements of Accounting I (principles of
financial accounting), Fundamentals of Accounting (for non-accounting majors), and Management Information Systems.

New Business Building Faculty and students are excited about the new business building, Richard H. Barry Hall. For those
that are not aware of the building, it is the former Pioneer Mutual Life building in downtown Fargo at the corner of 10
th
Street
and 2
nd
Avenue N. The official ground breaking for modifying and adding to the Pioneer Mutual Life building took place on
October 11, 2007. It is currently planned that classes will begin in the new facilities in fall 2009. The accounting and MIS
faculty are looking forward to joining with the other College of Business faculty in a single location. Pictures and floor plans
can be found at http://facilities-mgmt.ndsu.nodak.edu//maint_const/barry/.

Outstanding Accounting Student - DeAnn Wagenman was selected as the Outstanding Accounting Student for 2007 by the
faculty. This honor is given to the student that not only does well in the classroom, but also makes significant contributions to
her community. DeAnn will be graduating in December 2007 and will be taking a job with Widmer Roel PC in Fargo, ND.
Congratulations DeAnn!

Developing MAcc The faculty is busy developing a curriculum for a Master of Accountancy (MAcc) degree. The focus of
the faculty is to insure that this new degree is value-added over an undergraduate accounting degree. The curriculum will have
courses on accounting theory, applied accounting research, technology, management, and other specialized accounting courses.
It is planned that the MAcc will be approved and resources available to begin offering the degree in Fall 2009.

Department Student Statistics The charts below provide the trends for program enrollments and graduates. The accounting
enrollment is continuing to increase but enrollment in MIS is decreasing. The MIS trend is the same one being experienced by
most universities. We are actively pursuing ways to increase the MIS enrollment.
Program Enrollment
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Year
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

S
t
u
d
e
n
t
s
Accounting MIS
Program Graduates
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Year
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f

G
r
a
d
u
a
t
e
s
Accounting MIS

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Accounting & Information Systems Advisory Board

The Accounting & Information Systems Advisory Board promotes and supports the departments academic programs and
advises the faculty and administration on the direction the programs should take. This Board is vital to the success of the
accounting and MIS programs. As individuals currently in practice in the accounting or information systems disciplines, the
Board members are able to make significant contributions to the continuous improvement of the accounting and MIS programs.
The board meets once a year, but contributes throughout the year through email correspondence, making presentations to
student groups, etc. The current board members are listed below.

Daryl Anderson, CPA Dale Beyer, CFE, CPA
Microsoft Business Solutions Beyer & Associates, PLLC
Fargo, ND Fargo, ND

William (Bud) Bowlin, CGFM Tracy Burr
Advisory Board Chair Chief Financial Officer
Professor and Head, AIS Department The Schwan Food Company
North Dakota State University Marshall, MN
Fargo, ND

Tara Dieken Gail Flom
President, Accounting Club Supervisory Special Agent
North Dakota State University Criminal Investigation Division, IRS
Fargo, ND Fargo, ND

J ames Ford, CPA Steve Hanson
Senior Manager Advisory Board Treasurer
EideBailly Cargill
Bloomington, MN Minnetonka, MN

Chris J ohnston Brian A. Keller, CPA
Assistant Vice President of Finance Accounting Manager
Noridian Mutual Insurance Company SEI LLC and Ygomi LLC
Fargo, ND Fargo, ND

Erik Skie, CPA Kevin Skoog
Advisory Board Vice Chair MIS Manager
Principal Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota
LarsonAllen Fargo, ND
Minneapolis, MN

Mike Slette J ames A. Stephani
Director, University Relations Advisory Board Secretary
Microsoft Business Solutions IS Manager
Fargo, ND Federated Insurance
Owatonna, MN

Harold Stirling Brian Toops
IS Project Leader President, MIS Club
Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota North Dakota State University
Fargo, ND Fargo, ND

Corey Topp, CPA Dan Walerius
Partner Vice President of Finance
McGladrey & Pullen Gremada Industries
Minneapolis, MN West Fargo, ND


If you have five or more years work experience in the accounting or MIS disciplines and are interested in serving on this
Board, please let Bud Bowlin know at bud.bowlin@ndsu.edu.


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Would You Like to Help?

The cost of providing a quality university education continues to escalate. Maintaining NDSUs regionally recognized
accounting and MIS programs that are rapidly becoming nationally recognized programs continues to strain the appropriated
funds provided by the state legislature. Private support, in addition to what is provided by the state legislature, is needed to
continue the move to being the programs of choice for students and to enable the faculty to be innovative contributors to the
accounting and MIS disciplines. Your valued support of the Accounting & Information Systems Department ensures the
accounting and MIS programs continued success.

Please take time to complete the Alumni Update form provided on this page. In future editions of this newsletter, we would
like to add a section that reports on alumni activities. And, of course, any financial assistance you can provide will be much
appreciated.


Name ____________________________________

Home Address ______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

Email Address ______________________________________________________________

Prefer to receive future newsletters via email ____ Yes ____ No

Year Graduated from NDSU and major ____________________________________________

Employer ____________________________________________________

Business Position/Title __________________________________________

Employers Address _________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________

News About You (recent promotions, professional attainments, etc.)

















Yes, I would like to support the accounting and management information systems programs.

_____ $10 _____ $20 _____ $50 _____ Other

Please make out checks to North Dakota State University
Please return this form and/or your check to:

Accounting & Information Systems Department
North Dakota State University
PO Box 5075
Fargo, ND 58105-5075