Accounting professor named Outstanding Educator by PICPA

Parveen Gupta, the William L. Clayton Distinguished Professor of Accounting and former chair of the accounting department, has received the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA)’s Outstanding Educator Award. The award is given to university accounting educators who have distinguished themselves in the classroom through “instructional innovations, student and peer evaluations and active engagement in practical learning opportunities for students.”

Gupta is a nationally recognized expert in Sarbanes-Oxley, corporate governance, financial disclosure and internal control, audit committee effectiveness and enterprise risk management. He started at Lehigh in 1987 after receiving his Ph.D. in accounting from the Pennsylvania State University. During his 30-year academic career at Lehigh, he has taught a variety of courses in financial accounting, managerial accounting, intermediate accounting, corporate governance, risk management and internal controls.

The American Accounting Association awarded Gupta the Innovation in Accounting Education National Award in 2005 for developing a state-of-the-art graduate course in corporate governance in the aftermath of the Enron and WorldCom financial scandals. Gupta has also received several awards for his teaching and student engagement at Lehigh, including the Hillman Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising in 2016, the Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014 and the Robert and Christine Staub Excellence Award for Undergraduate Teaching in 2009. Gupta’s graduate students recognized him in 2000 and 2003 with the Outstanding MBA Professor of the Year Award.

Gupta’s current research focuses on understanding how a firm’s corporate governance practices affect the quality of its financial reporting and consequently its financial and capital market performance. He has published articles in major academic and practitioner journals such as Accounting, Organizations and Society; Accounting Horizons; Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance; Administrative Science Quarterly; American Sociological Review; Organization Studies; and the International Journal of Accounting. His research awards include the Best Plenary Research Paper Award at the Contemporary Accounting Research/Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics Special Joint Symposium in 2009; Vernon Zimmerman Best International Accounting Research Paper Award in 2008; the Institute of Management Accountants’ Lybrand Bronze Medal Award in 2008 and the Certificate of Merit Award in 2007; Lehigh University’s Beidleman Research Award in 2001; and a Best Research Paper Award in 1990 by the Association of Chartered Accountants in the U.S. In May 2007, then-Chairman Christopher Cox of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission recognized Gupta and his team for their work on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s Section 404 with the SEC’s prestigious Law and Policy Award. Gupta currently serves as a member of the Investor Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

A nominator for Gupta’s most recent honor wrote, “[Gupta] has led a highly distinguished career in the academic side of the accounting profession. He has excelled in his teaching effectiveness, empathy and impact on students. He is an award-winning, well-published, prolific researcher and expert in some of the most challenging accounting and financial reporting issues. He is highly regarded and sought after for his advice and comments outside the classroom by the press, various professional groups, and leaders in industry as well as in public accounting.”