Accounting
2022-2023 Program Review

The Accounting Department faculty, course curriculum, and certificates and degrees exist to support several vital student pathways. Specifically, accounting courses and programs provide both career and technical education. Accounting classes also offer lower division transfer-level, post-secondary education.

Accounting is a diverse field with extensive career opportunities at many levels. This means that career and technical education students qualify for a broad range of employment openings including clerical, technical, and professional accounting positions and careers in governmental, private industry, and public accounting. To prepare students for these opportunities, the Accounting Department offers four certificates, one degree, four transfer courses, and a selection of specific courses for employment in a variety of accounting careers.

The Accounting Department serves a large number of students whose academic and career goals do not include a degree or certificate. These goals meet the college mission of career technical education. However, outcomes for students achieving these go unmeasured in terms of degree and certificate completion rates. Many students are returning to advance their education, enhance their current career, or pursue a new field altogether. For example, students seeking employment or promotional opportunities in governmental positions will take specific courses to meet the educational requirements for those positions. Other students are changing careers and focusing on specific courses to meet the educational requirements to become a Certified Public Accountant. Still others will complete course work to obtain jobs in accounting without qualifying for degrees or certificates.

The lower division transfer accounting courses that the Accounting Department offers, help students achieve transfer and obtain a degree from a four-year post-secondary university. Students can complete two, transfer-level courses included as part of CSU, UC, and C-ID approved accounting courses which fit the Business Administration A.S. for Transfer (AS-T) Degree. Note: there is not an Accounting (AS-T) degree available. Two other transfer-level classes count towards elective units at CSU campuses.

ARC Mission

“American River College places students first in providing an academically rich, inclusive environment that inspires critical thinking, learning and achievement, and responsible participation in the community.

American River College, serving the greater Sacramento region, offers education and support for students to strengthen basic skills, earn associate degrees and certificates, transfer to other colleges and universities, and achieve career as well as other academic and personal goals.”

The Accounting Department contributes to many, if not all, of the values embodied in the ARC Mission Statement. Its courses and programs are certainly designed to maximize student success, through the large number of courses and programs offered, the range of academic and vocational goals which these support, and the variety among the curriculum they contain. Critical thinking is particularly relevant to accounting course work; the accounting process requires the processing of data in a way which meaningfully informs business operations and decision-making. Additionally, the wide variety of vital student pathways served by accounting courses and programs, allow for achievement in the areas of employable skill development, transfer, and obtainment of degrees and certificates.

The Accounting Department classes and programs also foster the people-driven values contained in the ARC Mission Statement. Many courses facilitate inclusiveness and collaboration required to create a meaningful learning community. This is achieved through team projects, discussion boards, and conversation among students in classroom, hybrid, or online courses. Outreach events such as the 2019 CalCPA regional outreach event hosted by ARC, serves the greater Sacramento region while promoting interaction between students, faculty, and industry professionals in accounting.

Looking forward, the Accounting Department plans to continue our efforts in student engagement and community outreach, particularly for our underserved populations, through the establishment of a Business Club. This organization will serve as a conduit between the student body (existing and prospective students) and the employer community. While the Business Club will serve all students interested in pursuing education and careers in business, we will be deliberate in our efforts to attract and retain our historically disproportionately impacted (DI) students. Starting at the top, the Business Club governance structure will include students that represent the diversity of our campus, and the charter will integrate a philosophy of outreach and service to our DI population. The Business Club will pursue DI populations where they are, by leveraging ARC Home Bases and integrating into other forums within the college that have access to our DI population. By creating a pathway between the classroom and the professional work environment, our students will become motivated, and therefore, more likely to complete their educational goals at ARC. 

Consistent with the Mission of ARC, the Accounting Department has endeavored to enhance professional opportunities for students, engage students early and often, provide clear and achievable educational and professional pathways, and provide individualized support where possible.

In reflecting on the prior 6 years of effort invested into our goals and objectives, there are some clear successes and also some areas for continued improvement, which are discussed in detail in Section 2.2. However, in summary, the Accounting Department has and continues to leverage professional and employer relationships in the community to broaden student awareness and opportunities beyond the classroom. For example, the Accounting Department has facilitated a formal event along with informal networking opportunities between the CalCPA and the ARC student body. These activities, along with the organizational relationship with CalCPA, have provided real world exposure and opportunities to the ARC students that otherwise may have not completed their pathway through our accounting curriculum.

It is important to highlight that not all outcomes from our engagements and efforts, can be measured immediately or while the student is attending ARC. For example, networks created through our professional relationships, which lead to better employment opportunities, are challenging to quantify. Similarly, career trajectories that are shifted from lower paying fields into professional services such as accounting, are not tracked with a sufficient level of detail. We fully believe that in addition to providing quality and consistent education to our students, that broader career and networking events are important to keeping students on their educational pathways.

As a department, we recognize and acknowledge that there is always more we can do to assist our students in successfully completing their educational and career pathways. This perspective is especially true for our underserved and underrepresented African American and Latinx communities. In the spirit of continuous improvement, we plan to build on our prior successes by broadening our reach and leveraging our professional relationships with businesses and governmental agencies. Our efforts will positively impact more students and assist them with their educational journey. 

Utilizing data sourced from the ARC Integrated Planning Portal, the Accounting Department has identified important metrics regarding our productivity, student success rates within accounting, and our ability “reach” in serving disproportionately impacted African American and Latinx students. 

Productivity—Over the measurement period, it was not a surprise that Accounting Department enrollment trends have decreased. Consistent with the broader ARC enrollment metrics, the Accounting Department has experienced a 19 percent decrease in total enrollments (see chart below). Interestingly, when isolating the previous 4 years, accounting enrollments were beginning to experience year-over-year increases; however, that trend was quickly broken with the pandemic arrival. These statistics also resemble the broader industry, with less and less intrants pursuing the financial services industry. Recently, the Wall Street Journal (December 2022) reported nearly a 17 percent decline in the accounting workforce and a noticeable decrease in college students coming into the field. While the article provides some organizational specific examples and other anecdotal information, the “takeaway” for educators and employers is that the workplace must evolve, and that newcomers to the industry have different expectations of working conditions and the opportunities available to them. This presents both challenges and opportunities for our department, particularly to engage our local employer community and help illuminate the expectation gap between prospective accounting staff and the organizations seeking to employee them.     

Student Success—A key measure of the Accounting Department’s ability to help achieve our organizational vision is our students’ performance. Like many of the technical subjects that our campus offers, accounting can be challenging and intimidating for students. Many of our accounting courses are 4-unit classes, requiring significant effort and practice on the student’s part to master the learning objectives. We are pleased to report that over the measurement period, success rates (see chart below) have made a material improvement from 69 percent to 78 percent of students earning a “C” or better within our broader course offerings.

While we celebrate this achievement, we also acknowledge this is an average of all accounting students, and that unfortunately the success rates are very unevenly distributed, with African American and Pacific Islander students performing well below the average (see chart below). This represents an opportunity for our department to make a conscious and deliberate effort to understand the underlying issues and provide additional support to these disproportionately impacted groups.     

Diversity and Representation—Based on 2021-22 enrollment information, the Accounting Department is fairly representative of the broader student population with a few notable exceptions (see chart below). When comparing ARC and accounting enrollments Hispanics/Latinx are the most underrepresented on a relative scale with Asians being the most overrepresented at -3.81 percent and 5.36 percent respectively. As a department, we are pleased that the data indicates a near equal representation of African Americans, with only a -0.6 percent differential. While the data suggests that the Accounting Department student enrollments are fairly representative of the broader student population, the student success rates require special attention, particularly the African American population.  

Consistent with the Mission of ARC, the Accounting Department has made notable progress in our ability to deliver quality and inclusive education to our students. However, we recognize that our efforts and outcomes must always endeavor to improve. What the data has revealed is that the Accounting Department is able to recruit/attract a representative proportion of the student body into our programs; however, our ability to achieve successful outcomes is negatively disproportionate, most notably for our African American population.

Additionally, while overall student enrollment has been on a negative trend over the measurement period for ARC, it appeared the Accounting Department was modestly reversing that trend prior to the pandemic. From a broader industry view, it appears there could be a disconnection between student understanding and expectations relative to the reality of the Accounting Industry. That is, why would a technical industry such as accounting, which provides above average monetary rewards and ample career opportunities not be growing and thriving? One may ask, is the college and the employer community providing effective outreach to generate excitement in this industry? Our department consensus is “no we are not” and that there is opportunity to not only expand our reach to the student population, but also improve student learning outcomes.                    

The Accounting Department envisions a thriving and engaged student body, where academic excellence, clear pathways to further education, and improved employment opportunities are abundant and equally available. Further, we see productive and collaborative relationships with our professional organizations and employers in the community. We see ourselves as the link between our students and the opportunities that exist beyond our campus, in both the University and employer community.

Our aspirations are in lockstep with the Vision and Mission of ARC, and when realized, will improve the livelihood of our students, the communities in which they live and, the careers in which they choose. The accounting industry continues to offer salaries and benefits that are significantly higher than the median occupations within the United States.  While monetary rewards are not indicative of success or social engagement, they do provide a solid pathway for our students to become meaningful contributors to our economy and their communities.

Driven by the data, the Accounting Department has selected two primary objectives:

1.     Grow student enrollment and engagement within Accounting Department through the establishment of a formal business club. The business club will recruit all students that wish to learn more about:

a.     Opportunities that exist within the business industry (broadly).

b.    Pathways and resources that our Business and Computer Science school offer.

c.     Networking opportunities with likeminded business students, professionals in the industry, and prospective employers.

Success will be measured by the establishment and perpetual operation of a business club that grows its membership, delivers quality learning events, and contributes to ARC and the surrounding community. The Business Club will actively and deliberately target DI populations.  

2.     Improve success outcomes for our DI students, especially our African American students. The Accounting Department will collaborate on strategies that can break down barriers to success for our disproportionately impacted students. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring awareness of ARC resources available to them, additional and deliberate one on one interactions, and additional sensitivity of our instruction methods to ensure they are grounded in empathy and equity minded. As the Accounting Department continues to grow and evolve to better serve our DI populations, we will explore opportunities to partner with existing DI groups and learn from existing best practice.    

As noted above, our primary objectives are centered in the Mission and Vision of ARC, which includes enhancing our outreach throughout the campus and community, but also directly targeted towards our underserved and disproportionately impacted African American students.

Resources—The Accounting Department believes that our objectives are bold yet realistically achievable. However, it is important to highlight that meaningful progress towards these objectives will require significant effort. The Accounting Department currently has four full time instructors, which is a decrease of nearly 33 percent from our prior year. The Accounting Department will be requesting, through the standard staffing process, 2 additional full-time faculty to assist in achieving these goals. Additionally, these proposed resources will be part of a broader succession plan, since the majority of our existing faculty is near or at retirement age.