Issue date: 7/31/08 Section: News

Media Credit: John Dale Professor Austin Daily, who has been a Texas A&M staff member since 1992, is the director and founder of the Professional Program in Accounting in the Mays Business School. Since its induction the program has grown more than 30 to over 450 students, and is recognized by national accounting firms and corporate managements. [Click to enlarge]

Austin Daily, director of Texas A&M University's Professional Program in Accounting (P.P.A.), has retired from his position after 16 years of affiliation with the program.

Before Daily's arrival, the accounting program was a four-year program common at many universities that changed in the 1990s.

"It was decided that there were beginning to be some problems in accounting education," Daily said. "It was thought that accounting would be more respected as a profession if they had a longer degree program."

Daily said the continued expansion of the accounting field as a studied profession and the resulting literature necessitated for a longer degree plan.

"Everything has gotten more complex. In recognition of that, we thought that was the way to go," he said.

Once the decision was made to enhance the program, the groundwork was laid for what would become an innovative program in accounting education.

"One thing that Texas A&M has done that no other school has done is to try and build upon the normal undergraduate program and then add to it a component that leads to a master's degree," Daily said. The P.P.A. allows students to earn a master's degree in one of six tracks and complete the Certified Public Accountant examination.

Before his work at A&M, Daily worked his way up from humble beginnings.

"I've done a lot of things," he said. After leaving his small hometown in Indiana, he moved on to receive a bachelor's in accounting from the University of Notre Dame. He then moved to New York City to work for Touche Ross & Company, one of the "Big Eight" accounting firms during the 1980s, before moving back to Indiana to work for an insurance company.

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