Rachel Cox, an instructor of professional practice in the School of Accounting at Oklahoma State University, was named the recipient of the Oklahoma Online Excellence Award.

The award will be presented to Cox by Sean Burrage, chancellor of the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education, at the May 29 meeting of the Board of Regents for the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges.

This is just the latest honor for Cox, who also received the OSU Online Teaching Excellence Award in December for her commitment to engaged online teaching and student success.

“I feel very honored to be recognized for my online teaching, but winning these awards has honestly never been a goal of mine,” Cox said. “I owe a huge amount of gratitude to the Greenwood Center for Online Excellence for not only nominating me for this award, but for supporting my creative approaches in each of those courses. Shona Good is a dedicated leader; Brandon Jackson and Jerimy Sherin are phenomenally talented with online video production; and Long He has been a huge support on the instructional design side.

“I also would like to thank Craig Sisneros in our department for his efforts in building out the structure of the most recent course that I brought online over the past year. Craig’s student-focused approach to teaching was the real genius behind that course. I just helped bridge what he was doing with the face-to-face students to work well in an online environment. Collaborating with our fellow faculty members who happen to teach the same course can be a win-win. We eliminate some of the burden of tackling everything on our own, and we provide a more consistent learning environment for our students.”

Cox is now in her ninth year as a career-track accounting faculty member at the Spears School of Business. She is the coordinator of the accounting program at OSU-Tulsa. She serves students directly as the faculty advisor for the Student Center for the Public Trust and Tulsa Accounting Scholars, a student organization that connects students with employers. Cox is a Spears Teaching Fellow and has a Business Ethics Teaching Fellowship. She chairs the scholarship and awards process for the School of Accounting on both campuses.

“Rachel Cox is an outstanding example of our commitment to teaching excellence in the School of Accounting,” said Dr. Angela Spencer, head of the OSU School of Accounting and the Lanny Chasteen Chair. “No matter whether she's teaching online or face-to-face, she finds ways to reach students where they are and design learning experiences that allow everyone to succeed. Her excellence as an instructor and the care and concern she provides to her students make a meaningful impact every day. We are so proud of her contributions and the example she sets for our entire community. We are lucky to count Rachel among our own.”

Since 2019, Cox has developed four separate three-credit accounting courses for the department, all fully online. She primarily teaches Intermediate Accounting & Data Analysis, Ethics, Practicum in Professional Accounting II, and Auditing courses now, but has taught Financial Accounting and Foundational Accounting Skills in the past.

“The majority of my students here in Tulsa prefer to take their courses online, because they are juggling a lot — most of them have a full-time job while they are finishing out their accounting education,” Cox said. “They are great students, but they just don’t have the margin for a traditional classroom approach to learning. I care about these Tulsa students deeply, and they have truly been my motivation for building out four different three-credit online courses for our department over the past six years to accommodate them.”

Cox joined Spears Business in 2017 after spending the previous five years as a CPA in Tulsa. She graduated from OSU with both her bachelor's and master's degrees in accounting in 2012.

"This award is a great honor, celebrating Professor Cox's dedication to online teaching," said Good, the director of online learning in the Michael and Anne Greenwood Center for Online Excellence.

Cox is one of the shining stars of the OSU School of Accounting, which is committed to building the future of accounting through providing a rigorous and relevant education that is backed by impactful research and outreach. The program is committed to teaching technical accounting knowledge, data analytics skills, and problem-solving, along with essential interpersonal skills that enable students to support a prosperous society by solving important problems.