Graduate School of Management professor Kyunghee Yoon is beginning her second year as an accounting professor in GSOM. After leaving the Catholic University of Korea with her undergraduate degree, she earned a second bachelor’s degree at Alverno College in Wisconsin, before beginning her studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where she earned her MACCY in Financial Accounting, an M.S. in Statistics, and her Ph.D. in Accounting Information Systems.

Second year accounting student Namisha Bhattarai interviewed Professor Yoon about her experience in GSOM thus far.

What brought you to Clark last fall?

First of all, I loved the place. Secondly, I really value interactive learning and the small class size here allows a lot of interaction and involvement from the students. This also makes it easier for me to connect with the students at a more personal level. Moreover, through this approach, I have been able to receive constant feedback, which has helped me grow a lot as an educator.

Describe some of your current research?

Currently my research concerns how the quality of an audit can be interlinked with non-financial factors and how it can be used to improve audit quality. Auditors can use weather data to capture unusual sales amounts. For instance: rough weather leads sales to plummet, which the auditor can identify as an exception from the usual data and plan his audit sampling accordingly. It is all about making audits more effective. I am also looking to incorporate correlation of other non-financial factors like social media and news reports, to the quality of an audit.

What can students expect from you as a professor?

I am very sensitive towards certain things like plagiarism and resorting to unfair means in my class. However, I am lucky that I haven’t had to face much of it at Clark. However, I also try to make the students comfortable with me. I can very closely relate to them since I have been in their shoes. I myself have been through the challenges of an international graduate student and I like to motivate them by sharing my experiences and my journey. I also try to use my networks to help students in their transition to the professional world from an academic setting.

What have you enjoyed the most while teaching in GSOM?

It is the quality of the students here. Most of them come with rich experiences which they share in class and make it more interesting. It is two-way learning here. I get to learn a lot from my students and their experiences. I also have found the students here to be very open to learning new things and accepting a new perspective, which makes it easier for an educator to impart new concepts.

 

~Namisha Bhattarai, M.S.A. expected 2018