In this day and age of corporate corruption, some schools across the
country and even the world are creating centers that bring the community
closer to the students in an effort to
share insight in areas that involve ethical
and financial issues. At San Diego State
University, the Center for Accounting in
the Public Interest (CAPI) was created
two years ago after the public’s confidence in accounting principles was
shaken by several corporate scandals.
“We live in a city where our city government found itself in quite a few scandals with its pension system and reporting of bonds and other issues,” says
Martha Doran, associate professor at
San Diego State University and the director of CAPI.
Smart Business asked Doran about
the creation of CAPI and how it’s working to renew the public’s trust.
What sort of financial matters of concern
and interest to the community might CAPI
cover?
We try and focus on three major areas.
It’s like a three-legged stool where all
three legs are vital to upholding the
stool. The three areas include financial
literacy, which is a term most people are
familiar with. Financial literacy can start
with a simple task such as creating a
budget and can grow to include the way
a CEO learns to understand the need for
certain accounting rules. There is also
the area of ethical literacy, which is
something we can’t forget. And, finally,
there’s the area of fraud awareness.
We concentrate on these ideas in the
context of three key concerns, which I
have dubbed as the Three Cs of
Accountability. The first C is counting
(from accounting) which is inherent in
the word accounting with an emphasis
on measurement and performance. The
second C is character, because you can
appear to comply with a rule, but if your
motive is to fudge the rule, then you
don’t have evidence of character, which
is the ability to stand up and do what
needs to be done, regardless of the discomfort it may cause. The rules don’t
matter if the character is lacking. The
final piece of accountability is communication. If you aren’t transparent, open,
clear and readable, then doing these
tasks won’t be known or understood by
the people who need to analyze them. So
the three legs of the stool are always
thought about in these three overarching
concepts.
What prompted the need for CAPI?
It started with the scandals we had
both in the corporate world, such as
Enron and WorldCom, and the issues we
had here locally with our government.
All of these issues raised the question,
‘Whom can we trust?’ I saw a need and a
renewed public interest bubbling up, as
people that I talked to expressed an
interest to participate in making it better. It’s all about ‘we the people’ because
it’s harder to fool active participants —
people who are actively reading, listening and talking about the issues. And
then they wonder about what they’ve
been told, combine it with what they
already know to be true and follow up
on the disconnects.
Do different campuses have different versions of CAPI?
There really are hundreds of centers
and institutes around the world. The
nature of the academy is to be that light
on the hill, providing understanding and
research for all of the wonderful goals
the public has. But what makes CAPI different is that it’s dedicated to serving as
a bridge between the university and its
surrounding community. And that bridge
is a two-way street, because both the
academy and the community have to
bring something to the table so that both
can walk away with what they need.
One of the best definitions of ‘business’
that I’ve ever heard is the idea that it is a
mutual exchange of value. CAPI tries to
enact that by viewing itself as a bridge,
particularly by having the students
involved in the process and not just letting it happen from only the professors’
side of the equation.
Is CAPI a separate entity from the school?
At this point we’re still in the seedling
stage, and it’s only part of the School of
Accountancy and the College of
Business Administration. We would like
to get more active participation from
members of the community who would
like to be part of the conversation as
sponsors and directors.
Last semester, my fraud awareness
classes had great projects. One group
identified a group of junior high students
and put on a presentation about fraud
awareness and the Internet. Another
group went to a retirement home and
spoke about elder abuse. Now, we would
like to see more leaders in the community join the discussion.
For more information on CAPI or to
learn how to join, go to capi.sdsu.edu.
MARTHA DORAN is an associate professor at SDSU and the director of CAPI. Reach her at (619) 594-6841 or [email protected].
Associate Professor,
Director of CAPI
San Diego State University
