November 6, 2018
Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Doug Schneider
Casey Siega-Riz with The Select Group presents the ECU Impact Faculty award to Dr. Doug Schneider
The College of Business’ (COB) Dr. Douglas Schneider, CPA, was recently presented the ECU IMPACT – Faculty Impact Award at this year’s Faculty Symposium, Designing Your Impact.
Dr. Schneider is the Edwin B. Jones Family Endowed Professorship in Accounting. His area of teaching and research is financial accounting and reporting. Dr. Schneider was recognized for his involvement in the promotion of career readiness competencies in his classes, as well as outside of class. These competencies include critical thinking/problem solving, digital technology, oral/written communications, leadership, teamwork/collaboration, professionalism/work ethic, career management, and global/intercultural fluency.
In addition to his promotion of career competencies, Dr. Schneider was recognized for his collaboration with the College of Business (COB) Career Center. When firms conduct on-campus interviews, Dr. Schneider acts as an ambassador for the accounting program, the COB, and ECU. He goes to lunch with people from firms or stops by the COB Career Center to say hello to firm representatives and discuss the preparation of the students or how faculty can assist the firm in their recruiting needs. Dr. Schneider has found time in his classes for firms to make appearances, to encourage students to visit the COB Career Center, and to impress upon them the importance of interviewing at “leadership conferences” where firms recruit candidates for office visits to interview for internships and jobs. In fact, RSM, one of the firms invited to visit his classes last Spring 2018, said the number of students signing up for leadership conference interviews increased dramatically from the previous year. Also, Dr. Schneider sends emails to students and makes announcements in class that underscore the importance of registering with the COB Career Center, submitting resumes for campus interviews, and attending events hosted by prospective employers. This continuous follow-up with the students increases placement results.
Each year local firms or businesses contact Dr. Schneider looking for accounting majors to work as interns. He sends out emails to all accounting majors, or a targeted group of accounting majors, that fit the position due to their program of study (e.g., juniors, seniors or MSA students). Some recent, and in some cases, recurring examples include ONLINE Information Services, Edwin Gray, CPA, Cahaba Safeguard Administrators, LLC, Martin Starnes & Associates, Alliance One International, and Eastern AHEC (Area Health Education Center). Students have expressed how much they appreciate being informed of these opportunities, as it leads to internships for some. This allows them to enhance accounting-related work experience on their resume while still making progress in school. Accounting majors are also recruited by Dr. Schneider to serve as on-campus accounting interns in various ECU financial services. Dr. Schneider further supported the COB Career Center by having served on the Internship Committee for the college. Some years ago, Dr. Schneider lobbied for the establishment of a Career Center at the COB.
Congratulations to Dr. Schneider for an award much deserved!