UNT Dallas Campus offers a great venue for meetings.  The atrium design of the building lends well to mixing and mingling. And our fine state of the art computer labs aid in hands on learning.

After visiting the campus for our last Community College Accounting Teacher Forum, Wiley Rep Melanie recommended it as a site for Wiley Plus Instruction. 

Wiley flew Facutly Mentor John Arle in from Eugene, OR for the day. He delivered a talk on how he uses Wiley Plus technology in our Theater Style Room 102.  Later the group lunched in the atrium.  The day concluded with a hands on demo in one of our computer labs.  We  visited with the group and posted some shots in one of the photo albums down the left hand side of the page.  At left John Arle, Marek Frankiewicz, Carrie Addis,and Melanie visit while the group is in the computer lab.

Thanks for choosing our campus, come again soon!  The next CcATS will be Friday February 8, 2008.

I was in stunned amazement to discover that not one person in ACCT 3110 knew who Maria Bartiromo is. 
The irony is that one student was doing a book report by a female at CNN on how to advance the cause of women at work.  Yet no one knows who Maria Bartiromo is?

I will expect some posts on the blog about this, turn off MTV, E, Dancing with the Stars, etc.  and, well, you figure it out. 

We had a bit of a debate in audit class and here are some answers.

The last day of class this semester, ie, classes are held is Wed. Dec. 5, 2007.  If a class meets once a week it can be held R, F, S.

One cannot obtain the nubmer of hours necessary to take the CPA exam as an undergraduate at UNT. As I explained in class, the intent is to make you take some grad classes, in this case you will need at least two of them or six hour.  You must apply to grad school to take grad classes.  One can apply for admission only, classes do not count towards major, and then take up to 12 hours before one has to take the GMAT.   Then one can declare and the classes still count.  I suspect this rule is why one of you thought you did not have to actually be admitted, no you do not have to take the GMAT which is probably why this rule got instituted.

Hope that clears things up.

That would be the number of tax returns filed last year, a huge waste of time and money. 

Dick Armey weighs in on the tax code in this article. Local and state candidates running on no tax platforms have done well.  I am still waiting for a candidate to emerge who has seized this as an issue.  You cannot grasp the enormity of this futile exercise until you start working and earn enough to have to wrestle this alligator. Personally my opinion is that accountants are too tied to the tax guy image and not to the business success image. As such they tend to be treated like tax mechanics or fire extinguishers. They are only brought ought in time of fire or emergency.  That is no way to build a profession.

Also check out The Fair Tax.

Here is Steve Forbes on the Flat Tax.

Last night I was privileged to help judge the presentations of the Dallas Campus Capstone Class.  I thought the presenters basically did a good job and it was clear a lot of work went into the presentations.  Learning to be relaxed and confident in front of a group of people only comes one way – from experience. 

Here is a list of nearby Best Southwest Toastmaster Clubs.   During the break, why don’t you drop in on one and try your luck at it.  Their full website is here.    One of the contests is called Table Topics.  Three or four individuals draw topics from a hat and have one minute or so to prepare their ‘two minute speech.’  This pretty well emulates the idea of an elevator pitch, the length of time one has on an elevator to make a proposal to someone. 

Doing this sort of thing is all about learning to lead by establishing a vision and mission for an audience.  Google the Patton speech on You Tube if you have not seen it, think of Reagan challenging Gorbachev to Tear Down this Wall, JFK declaring in German that he is a Berliner,  think of MLK dreaming of a more perfect world, words matter and the ability to deliver those words makes all that possible.

Most if not all of you shirk from this challenge, like all phobias and fears it must be confronted and overcome. And that comes from experience.

I ran across this news release on the UNT site. Turns out UNT students are heading to Nepal  to learn about urban planning and the environment. Funny have they askede any of our students here from Nepal like Lhamu or Bibek or  Anuja?  Nepal comes here we go there, what’s up with all this?

Larry Summers was the Deputy Secy of Treasury under Clinton and then President of Harvard, until he started telling Harvard Professors what he really thought.  Anyway, he is seriously concerned about recession and makes some suggestions here.

Do you know the meaning of a Blue Pete flag hoisted aloft on  a ship in the harbor?  This Canadian lawyer has constructed an interesting cross section of literature, philosophy, and other classic resources.  I am adding it to my list of Helpful Websites.

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.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Essay on Gifts, 1844

Rachel’s good post about Black Friday calls to mind Emerson’s wonderful essay on gifts, I post it every year about this time. You can read it here. Note he comments that the world seems so ready to go into bankruptcy that according to many it should be sold, so desperate are the times.  Notably this essay from the second series was written in 1844.  Amid the worries about sub prime and the declining dollar, his first line is most appropriate, 164 years ago!

Read and enjoy and poss it on to some child ( age 6-60) bemoaning that they are without the latest thingamajig or watchyamacallit.

Black Friday is the shopping day after Thanksgiving. it is named with the idea that on this day, stores are ‘in the black.’

JCP and Kohl’s opened at 4 AM a sure sign of worry. But sales overall are apparently up 8.3%.  Perhaps the credit cards are not maxxed out after all.   Again, what does tis say about a store’s strategy?

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