Geneva Business Professor Offers Incentive to Accounting Students - Geneva College
Geneva College Logo
View More Stories

Geneva Business Professor Offers Incentive to Accounting Students

Picture of Geneva Business Professor Offers Incentive to Accounting Students

(BEAVER FALLS, Pa.)—Geneva College announces a substantial additional award to accounting graduates of the college who qualify for the Elijah Watt Sells Award based on outstanding performance on the Uniform CPA Examination. The new award of $5,000 to each student who receives the Sells Award is made possible by the initiative and generosity of Geneva business professor Dr. Gary VanderPlaats.

To provide additional incentive to accounting graduates, Geneva offers the new award to students who have taken a minimum of 60 credit hours at Geneva College, including all accounting courses with the exception of ACC 151 and ACC 152, and have received the Sells award. Geneva College will seek additional gifts from other donors to match Dr. VanderPlaats’ amount in hopes of increasing the award to $10,000. Geneva will begin awarding in 2018.

To qualify for the Elijah Watt Sells Award, the recipient must have “obtained a cumulative average score above 95.50 across all four sections of the Uniform CPA Examination, and passed all four sections of the Examination on their first attempt.” The rigorous standard to qualify for the Award was met by just 58 of the more than 100,000 students who took the exam in 2016.

The Sells Award was created by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in 1923 to recognize outstanding performance on the CPA Examination, which demonstrates that people who earn their certified public accountant’s license have mastered the knowledge and skills needed to safeguard public interest in a changing and complicated business and financial world. The Award is named in honor of the man who founded the first major accounting firm, Haskins & Sells, in 1895. As one of the first certified public accountants in the U.S., Sells play a key role in the forming of the AICPA and advancing professional education within accounting.

Geneva College is a Christ-centered academic community that provides a comprehensive education to equip students for faithful and fruitful service to God and neighbor. Offering over 80 traditional undergraduate majors and programs, Adult Degree Programs with fully online and classroom options, and high-demand graduate degrees, Geneva's programs are recognized for their high quality. U.S. News & World Report ranks Geneva as a Top Three Best Value Regional University with one of the Top 100 engineering programs in the nation. Adhering to the truth of Scripture, a Geneva education is grounded in God’s Word as well as in a core curriculum designed to prepare students vocationally to think, write and communicate well in today’s world.

Feb 12, 2018