“The Sarbanes-Oxley Act: A Three-Year Retrospective” is the theme of the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Accounting Association (AAA). The meeting, which is being held August 7-10, 2005 in San Francisco, California, offers attendees an opportunities to learn, communicate and network with others in the accounting industry.

Among the speakers to be featured at plenary sessions, luncheons and the opening dinner include:

• Judy Rayburn, AAA President
• Dennis Beresford, Ernst & Young Executive Professor in the J.M. Tull School of Accounting at the University of Georgia
• Congressman Michael Oxley
• John Snow, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
• Katherine Schipper, Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) member
• Cynthia Cooper, WorldCom whistle-blower

In addition to featured speakers, five awards, the Outstanding Accounting Educator Award, theWildman Medal Award, the Competitive Manuscript Award, the Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award and the Innovation in Accounting Education Award will be presented at this year's conference.

Two new initiatives are also being introduced this year. Approximately 40 New Scholar Concurrent Sessions will be held allowing two new faculty members or doctoral students to receive detailed developmental feedback from more senior faculty members in their discipline. Counting these sessions, more than 200 concurrent sessions for research papers will be offered and more than 150 papers will be presented at the research forum. The second initiatives expands the variety of Continuing Professional Education (CPE) sessions. This year CPE sessions will begin August 6 and continue throughout the duration of the conference.

A variety of topics will be covered at this year's conference, including:

• The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) efforts to provided implementaion guidance to smaller public companies in applying COSO's Internal Control: Integrated Framework document in reporting on internal controls under Section 404
• Demonstrations of real-life accounting data for the classroom
• Effects of SOX on auditors, preparers of financial statements, and information systems (IS)
• Ph.D. shortage in accounting
• Board and audit committee search process, including a discussion of how academics get invited to join corporate boards
• Managing group projects and assignments
• Discussion of a model program in fraud and forensic accounting being developed under a grant from the National Institute of Justice, a unit of the U.S. Justice Department
• Discussion of fair value accounting: Relevance or reliability?
• Identifying and measuring learning outcomes
• and many other important topics!

For more informatin or to register visit the 2005 Annual Meeting brochure at the American Accounting Assoication web site.