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Accounting academic is Lecturer of Year
A University of the Sunshine Coast academic striving to show businesses the monetary value of environmental responsibility has been named Accounting/ Finance Lecturer of the Year across Australia and New Zealand.
USC Senior Lecturer in Accounting Dr Monte Wynder is a former banker who has taught at universities since the early 1990s, including the past six at USC.
He was awarded the 2010 Pearson Accounting/Finance Lecturer of the Year at a conference in Christchurch, NZ, last week.
It is the first time the $3,000 annual award, introduced in 2001, has gone to the University of the Sunshine Coast. It is presented at the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) conference.
USC Accounting Discipline Leader Dr Peter Baxter said the award was designed to encourage and recognise innovative teaching practices in accounting or finance at a university level.
Dr Wynder said he was pleased with the recognition of his work, which was supported by a University committed to quality teaching and close interaction with students.
“As a management accounting educator, I prepare students to become professional problem solvers,” he said.
“In the rapidly changing business environment, accountants must be able to generate novel solutions. I introduced self-directed learning for students through the extensive use of business scenarios.”
Dr Wynder said creativity was necessary to tackle contemporary accounting issues such as environmental responsibility.
“I aim to show how organisations can profitably pursue social and environmental objectives simultaneously. It doesn’t pay to ignore these things,” he said.
He recently wrote a chapter on sustainability in the Australian adaptation of an American textbook, “Cost Accounting”.
The award follows Dr Wynder’s Australian Learning and Teaching Council citation (2009), USC Vice-Chancellor’s Medal for Outstanding University Teacher (2010) and consistently high student evaluations.
– Julie Gatehouse