OSU’s Angela Spencer honored with Outstanding Accounting Educator Award

Friday, August 21, 2020

Oklahoma State University professor Dr. Angela Spencer has been selected to receive the 2020 Outstanding Accounting Educator Award, presented annually by the Oklahoma Society of Certified Public Accountants. She will be recognized during the OSCPA’s 2020 virtual annual meeting Sept. 22.

“I am so pleased that Angela has received this recognition, as she is truly deserving,” said Dr. Audrey Gramling, head of the OSU School of Accounting in the Spears School of Business. “She is student-focused, generous with her time, operates on a foundation of ethics and has a commitment to quality. Angela’s contributions are instrumental in the School of Accounting achieving its vision of building the future of accounting. We are very fortunate to have her on our team.”

Spencer, who has been an accounting instructor at OSU for 14 years, is currently serving on the OSCPA’s Accounting Careers Committee. As an associate professor and undergraduate coordinator in the School of Accounting, she helped develop new, non-traditional accounting courses after Spears Business underwent a core curriculum redesign. One new course allowed her to present key accounting skills through the mindset of an entrepreneur, presenting different skills as the complexity of the business increased. 

Another course in data analytics will deliver content in labs attached to 3000 level courses that reinforce content learned during lectures, combined with technology tools and techniques. Additionally, Spencer and a colleague created a course that involved on-campus work and travel to Walt Disney World to interact with professionals and consider how creative problem solving and innovation must be part of an accountant’s career. Because of how well it’s been received, the course is now required for all incoming accounting master’s students.

She’s won numerous awards, including the FSA Innovation in Graduate Teaching Award, the Spears Business Research Excellence Award (twice), the Spears Business Graduate Level Teaching Award and the Phillips 66 Exceptional Service Award (twice).

“I’ve known Dr. Spencer as a professor, boss and mentor, and in each role she encourages students and drives them to success,” said Preston Lewis, who earned both his bachelor’s degree (2019) and master's in accounting (2020) from OSU and is currently participating in the Postgraduate Technical Assistant Program by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. “She is quick to identify her students’ needs and does all she can to meet those needs. She has a talent for communicating material from a technical and complex field, and I know my fellow classmates and I are better off having had Dr. Spencer as a professor.”

In conjunction with her award, Spencer will receive a scholarship from the OSCPA to award to an accounting student of her choice.

“I realize that if I were to design the perfect instructor … someone who would be both kind and challenging, someone who would nurture and push them … that instructor would look an awful lot like Angela Spencer,” Dr. Carol Johnson, Spears Business associate dean of business intelligence, wrote in her letter of recommendation. “She has truly made a remarkable difference for the developing CPAs of Oklahoma.”  

Spencer joins a long list of past Spears Business accounting faculty to be honored with the Outstanding Accounting Educator Award: Bob Cornell (2015), Charlotte Wright (2009), T. Sterling Wetzel (2006), Gary Meek (2001), Patrick Dorr (1997) and Lanny Chasteen (1991 and 2007).

The Outstanding Accounting Educator Award recognizes distinguished educators for teaching excellence, innovating educational techniques, motivating students and contributing to the accounting profession.

MEDIA CONTACT: Terry Tush | Director, Marketing and Communications | 405-744-2703 | terry.tush@okstate.edu