Professor Elam

Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M

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  • Professor Elam

    Internship Opportunity

    Wed January 6, 2016

    Greetings from the South Central Climate Science Center!

    We are pleased to announce that we will be offering a summer undergraduate internship opportunity in 2016 for students of underrepresented minorities interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields (for example, agricultural science, economics, environmental engineering). Interns will be involved in hands-on activities related to climate research that will allow them to see the direct impacts of climate variability and change on the West Texas Southern High Plains, prairie and forest ecosystems and tribal cultures in Oklahoma, and the bayous, delta and coastline of Louisiana. Internship participants will travel across the South Central United States to visit university campuses and field locations and interact with faculty conducting cutting edge research.

    The internship will take place from Sunday, May 22, 2016 to Saturday, June 11, 2016. Interns will spend one week with Louisiana State University, one week with the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, and one week with Texas Tech University. All meals, lodging and travel will be provided during the three week period. In addition, interns will receive a $200/week stipend for the duration of the program. The program will not cover local travel between the participant's home to their closest airport, personal equipment (clothing, cameras, etc.), or other personal expenses.

    Samples of the 2014 and 2015 itineraries are available:
    http://www.southcentralclimate.org/content/documents/2014CSCUndergrad.pdf
    http://www.southcentralclimate.org/content/documents/2015CSCUndergrad.pdf
    A video about the internship produced by participants in the 2014 experience is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShN9yawAWAs

    Applicants must reside in and be traveling from Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, or Texas. The deadline to apply is 5:00 PM Central Time on Monday, February 29, 2016.
    For full eligibility requirements and to access the application form, please see: https://goo.gl/S18sCA

    The South Central Climate Science Center is committed to encouraging diversity in the sciences. Please encourage your scientifically minded students to apply for this unique opportunity to experience climate research hands-on.

    Established in 2012 by the Department of Interior, the South Central Climate Science Center provides decision makers with the science, tools, and information they need to address the impacts of climate variability and change on their areas of responsibility. The Center supports big thinking, including multi-institutional and stakeholder-driven approaches to climate variability, change, impacts, mitigation, and adaptation research.

    If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

     

     

  • Professor Elam

    CPA Firm Entry Level Opportunity

    Thursday Dec 17, 2015

     

    Professor Elam,
    I work at a CPA firm here in San Antonio and we will have a job opening starting in January. I was wondering if you would be willing to send an e-mail out to the students in your accounting classes to let them know of this great opportunity. The firm is Baros and Company, P.C. and we would need them for about 30 hours a week. They would be paid hourly. Most of the work would consist of data entry, using Quickbooks and some Excel as well. It is a great learning experience for students as well as a good opportunity for their future career in accounting. If you do choose to send an e-mail out, anyone interested can either e-mail me at morganbaros@gmail.com or they can reach me at 210-835-6192. Thank you for your time and please let me know what you decided to do. I hope you have a wonderful winter break!

    Morgan Baros

  • Professor Elam

    An Exotic Scrapyard

    Weekend Dec 6, 2015

    I had a client in the auto salvage business. The key is to specialize as this you tube video demonstrates.

    this scrapyard in England searches the world for parts from wrecked Ferraris and such. The inventory is quoted at  7.5 million euros. 

    This is a great example of how managerial accounting could be used to help one socialize in high end rather than mundane auto parts. 

  • Professor Elam

    Student Rating of Instructors

    Thursday Dec 3 2015

    Dear Faculty,

    The Student Rating of Instruction (SRI) emails were sent to students today to their Jaguar email accounts. An announcement was also posted to Blackboard. Students can also access their SRIs via a link in Blackboard after they login. The SRIs are open now and will close on 12/6/2015 at 5:00pm.
    Students have two options to access their Course Evaluations (please feel free to copy and paste the information between the bars into a communication to your students):

    ________

    1. Blackboard. https://tamusa.blackboard.com/webapps/login/ Once you login you will see the "My Institution" page. Look for the "Tools" module. The course evaluation link is at the bottom of the Tools module. Click on the link "Course Evaluations" and you will be taken to your course evaluation links for each class you are enrolled in.

    2. Student Jaguar Email accounts. Student Jaguar Email link. Once you login to your Jaguar account, you will see emails sent by A&M-San Antonio Admin. You should have received one email for each class you are enrolled in. Links to the course evaluations are contained in these emails.

    ________

    We are conducting a communication campaign to encourage your students to complete their SRIs. However, research indicates that the simplest and most effective way to improve your SRI response rate is to communicate with your students about why their feedback is important to you as an instructor, and to remind them about the SRIs at least twice.Student 

  • Professor Elam

    A visit to the SA Institute of Internal Auditor Meeting

    Monday November 30, 2015

    A TAMUSA accounting student attended the monthly SA IIA meeting. I asked her to jot down her impressions and take away from the meeting. Here in her own words is a description of the experience.

     

    On November 18, 2015 I took my very first step into the professional accounting world.  I had the pleasurable experience of attending The Institute of Internal Auditors San Antonio Chapter monthly luncheon.  The guest speaker was Executive Committee member of The IIA’s Global Board of Directors J. Michael Peppers and the topic was the new internal professional practices framework (IPPF).

    I arrived a little early and easily found a table with plenty of seating, I introduced myself and took a seat.  Before Mr. Peppers began speaking the table was full, I found myself in the company of Auditors for USAA and San Antonio Water System among others.  Everyone was friendly and welcoming to having a student at the table.  As Mr. Peppers began to speak and go over the new IPPF I realized how exciting it is to be a young professional at this time; there seems to be much growth and change in the profession.  I learned about the mandatory elements of the IPPF such as: the core principles, code of ethics, and the definition of internal auditing.  I also learned that using coasters as a marketing tool can be a fun conversation starter.  I would like to have one of those new IPPF coasters (who knows, they may be a collector’s item in years to come). 

    Overall I had a great experience; I managed to earn one CPE point and I’m not even a professional yet!  My one regret is not introducing myself to Mr. Peppers.  In his speech he called on the room to bring incoming professionals into the loop, I was mentally waiving my Texas A&M flag yelling “here I am!” as he made the request.  I look forward to the next luncheon and the opportunities to learn and grow as a student and a professional

  • Professor Elam

    UT Austin and Univ Houston Clash

    Monday Nov 23, 2015

    News that UT Austin purchased 332 acres in South Houston for a Research Center has the University of Houston Regents on boil. UT Austin already had a big presence in the Houston Medical Center with it Med School. Understand that UT Austin acquired system campuses like UTSA to defend the fact that only UT and A & M are recipients of the Permanent Fund money. Created in the 1880s, this is now the second largest endowment in the USA after Harvard which after all started in 1636. 

    Universities in the larger towns of Houston, UH, Dallas, UNT, and even Lubbock, Tech, began complaining in the 1960s that they served larger populations than UT in Austin, then  fraction of what it is today< and College Station. UT Regent Frank Erwin hatched a plan to locate at least one UT school in at least a dozen state senator districts. This resulted in UT El Paso, UTSA, UT Arlington, and so forth. A & M joined in later acquiring or starting smaller schools like Tarleton and TAMUSA. 

    I was in Houston just a few weeks ago and frankly was stunned at their modest new football stadium. Such is life at the large second tier schools in the state. But as U of H attempts Tier One status this is surely a poke in the eye by UT Austin. It is hard for me to see the necessity of such  move but oh well. 

  • Professor Elam

    Emerson was Right in 1844, He is Right Today – Gifts

    I have posted some or part of Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous essay on gifts the last several Christmas seasons. I have posted prior to the nutcase day otherwise known at Black Friday. On this day stores open at ridiculous early hours. Limited numbers of cut rate bgargains are offered to entice shoppers to the store.  To this sort of thing, Emerson said, nuts, but in a considerably more lofty tone. 

    He wrote these essays in 1844. . Tmes change, people do not. The only gift is a portion of thyself, it is a cold lifeless business when you go to a shop to buy me something, well put Waldo. 

     

    "Gifts"
    By Ralph Waldo Emerson.

    IT is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into chancery, and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, which involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of the difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year, and other times, in bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the choosing. If, at any time, it comes into my head that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a workhouse. Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favour, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty. Men use to tell us that we love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. Something like that pleasure the flowers give us: what ant I to whom these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to come a hundred miles to visit him, and should set before me a basket of fine summer fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the labour and the reward.

    For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option, since if the man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a man eat bread, or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of punishing him. I can think of many parts I should prefer playing to that of the Furies. Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift which one of my friends prescribed is, that we might convey to some person that which properly, belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to the primary basis, when a man's biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an index of his merit. But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's. This is fib for kings, and rich men who represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering, or payment of black mail.

  • Professor Elam

    Webmail Down on my Mac

    Friday Morning Nov 20 2015

    As you may know the school is attempting to migrate from tamsa.tamus.eduto tams.edu.

    I was told my account had migrated but the result is that I cannot access the school e mail from my mac at home. I have not tried the PC yet which is here but I loathe it, off campus it frankly does not work very well and certainly not very fast. 

    So for this weekend if you need to communicate just use

     

    dennis.elam@att.net

  • Professor Elam

    Hy Flex for Spring

    Thursday Nov 19, 2015

    I have been promising all who asked that yes Intermed Acct in the spring would be hy flex.

    It is now official and on Jaguar Connect. This is a real asset to those who are working or as one Mom remarked to me this morning, picking up kids from school.

    So you can register with confidence in an Intermed class that it will be hybrid with me in the spring.

  • Professor Elam

    San Antonio Housing Authority Job Fair

    Wed Nov 18 2015

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