Future accounting education and research;

              FUTURE ACCOUNTING EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
by Michael N. Chetkovich Partner, Executive Office
Presented before the American Accounting Association Doctoral Consortium, Lexington, Kentucky - August 1971
I am honored at being asked to open this Consortium. Further, it is a great pleasure to be here with you. I came very close to taking the Ph.D. route myself at Berkeley after World War II — and I always enjoy being on campus and with people of the academic community.
As the world grows smaller and its problems grow larger, people and groups of people have greater interdependence and need for one another. And yet, because of the pace of our times, our contacts seem to become more superficial. More and more, individuals and groups (such as the professions, business and the academic community) must rely on each other if they are to achieve their respective and joint goals. In a small way, we in this room demonstrate this fact.
RESEARCH AND THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
Every thinking public accounting practitioner knows the extent to which he must depend on you, the academic community, not only to supply the well-trained graduates that are the lifeblood of the profession, but also to provide creative and productive research in the most substantive areas of his profession. And I would underscore research, even though today there is considerable debate concerning the scope and place of research in colleges and universities. There are a number of critics who feel that there is an overemphasis on research, to the detriment of economic and effective performance of the teaching function. I know that in my old home state of California there are many taxpayers who feel that there is an overemphasis on research in the State University. Although there are two sides to every question, I tend to subscribe to the comment of a professor of economics at U.C.L.A., who said: "Research is to teaching what sin is to confession: with­out
the one you have nothing to say on the other."