From August 9 to 10, 2023, Professor Hongtao Tan, the official mentor for AACSB International Accreditation and the head of the Audit Office at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, along with Qiuping Xu, the director of the International Accreditation Office of the School of Accounting at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics visited the School of Accounting to provide on-site guidance for our school's AACSB International Accreditation. The guidance activities were held in Room 246 of the Quanxue Building, during which several symposiums were convened. The deans and directors of the School of Accounting, including Dean Hang Liu, Deputy Dean Xiaodong Zhang, Deputy Dean Kejing Chen, Deputy Dean Haoran Xu, and Feiyang Liu, AACSB International Accreditation Staff, attended the meetings, which were chaired by Dean Hang Liu.
Hang Liu first extended a warm welcome and sincere thanks to Professor Hongtao Tan and Director Qiuping Xu for their visit. He stated that AACSB accreditation is of great significance for the School of Accounting to align with the international standards of first-class business schools and to promote the improvement of the school's internationalization level. The school will fully support the advancement of the AACSB international accreditation process. Hang Liu also introduced the development history of the School of Accounting and its achievements in disciplines construction, scientific research, and talent cultivation, and explained the school's development plan for the coming period.
Haoran Xu reported on the school's mission, vision, values, intellectual contributions, faculty classification, assurance of learning, degree program division, and curriculum outline revision, among other tasks. Xiaodong Zhang provided a detailed introduction to graduate talent cultivation, degree program setting, and the selection of AOL assessment courses. Kejing Chen reported on undergraduate major settings, the integration of emerging technologies with accounting, and student practice and internships.
Professor Hongtao Tan introduced the background, philosophy, requirements, and significance of AACSB accreditation, shared the valuable experience of Southwestern University of Finance and Economics' School of Accounting in successfully obtaining AACSB international accreditation, and offered valuable suggestions on teaching space, facilities, degree program setting, assurance of learning, faculty, intellectual contributions, and societal impact. Director Qiuping Xu put forward specific suggestions on improving faculty research level, course process assessment, AOL committee building, and course group operation, pointing out that the school should further mobilize all forces to advance the accreditation process.
AACSB, also known as the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, was founded in 1916 and is the world's premier non-governmental accrediting body for business schools and accounting programs. Currently, less than 5% of business schools worldwide have obtained this elite accreditation. The School of Accounting at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics has passed the AACSB eligibility application and is currently in the stage of preparing and writing the Initial Self-Evaluation Report (iSER). Since this semester, the school has organized relevant personnel to learn advanced accreditation experience in Beijing, Shanghai, and other places several times, invited accreditation experts to give lectures on campus, and conducted discussions and exchanges with more than ten sister institutions. In addition, the school has organized more than 40 internal publicity and discussion sessions and has preliminarily established implementation plans for various tasks. Moving forward, the school will focus on the implementation of AOL, faculty classification and improvement, and the writing of the iSER report to continuously advance the AACSB international accreditation process.
