NEWS INDEX 2001 September

Ira Solomon appointed head of accountancy

Sharita Forrest , News Editor
(217) 333-2894; slforres@uiuc.edu

9/17/01

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Ira Solomon has been appointed head of the department of accountancy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, effective Jan. 6, 2002.

The appointment was approved Thursday by the UI Board of Trustees at its meeting in Chicago.

Solomon joined the UI faculty in 1983. He has held the position of professor of accountancy since 1987 and will continue in that capacity along with his new appointment. Solomon also will continue as the Robert C. Evans Endowed Chair in the College of Commerce and Business Administration, a designation he received in 2001.

Over the course of his career, Solomon has earned numerous awards and honors, including the American Accounting Association Outstanding Auditing Educator award and the UI Graduate College Award for Outstanding Mentoring of Graduate Students, both of which he received in 1997.

Solomon earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in accounting from the University of Texas at Austin in 1973, 1974 and 1979 respectively. He became a certified public accountant in 1974.

Solomon’s research focuses on auditing and attestation and the market for these services.

Since 1993, Solomon also has served as the director of Project Discovery, an innovative team-based accountancy curriculum. A joint project of accountancy faculty at the UI and Notre Dame University, Project Discovery transcends rote learning of accountancy concepts to foster development of cognitive skills such as communication, time management and teamwork.