Collin County professor wins Outstanding Educator award

Paula Miller, CPA and accounting professor at Collin County Community College, was honored recently with the Texas Society of Certified Public Accountants’ (TSCPA) 2008 Outstanding Accounting Educator Award.

At a ceremony held Oct. 24 during the TSCPA Accounting Education Conference, Miller received a plaque and a $1,000 award provided by the TSCPA Accounting Education Foundation.

The statewide TSCPA Outstanding Accounting Educator Awards honor Texans who have demonstrated excellence in teaching and who have distinguished themselves through active service to the accounting profession. Criteria for judging includes instructional innovation, student motivation, the pursuit of learning opportunities for students, involvement in student and professional accounting organizations, and research accomplishments and publications.

Miller uses innovative teaching strategies to keep her students interested and motivated. She places students in groups of two to four to work and displays their work on white boards to the entire class. Students have indicated that they enjoy this learning style because they are working with someone else and don’t feel singled out when they make a mistake. Miller strives to motivate her students in any way that she can and makes herself available as much as possible. She remains in the classroom during breaks and after class to help her students and she voluntarily took over organization and supervision of the accounting tutoring lab to keep it from getting canceled.

Miller has served on a number of committees and task forces at Collin County Community College throughout her years as a faculty member. She is also a member of the American Institute of CPAs and is a regular at the Accounting Educator’s Conference each year since 1995.

About TSCPA
TSCPA is a nonprofit, voluntary, professional organization representing Texas CPAs. The society has 20 local chapters statewide and has 28,000 members, one of the largest in-state memberships of any state CPA society in the United States. TSCPA is committed to serving the public interest with programs that advance the highest standards of ethics and practice within the CPA profession.