Course 'Unaccounted' for at Harvard College

Most Harvard students consider a trek to class in the Science Center from the river Houses a daily chore.

But for Jonathan I. Goldberg '00, that's a piece of cake. Every Tuesday and Thursday, Goldberg heads over to MIT--"the trade school down the river" to take a class in accounting.

He's not alone. Last year, 48 Harvard students did the same thing.

Almost a quarter of the 200-some students enrolled in MIT's introductory accounting class last year were cross-registered from Harvard. According to the registrar's office at MIT, after ROTC, accounting draws the most Harvard students to their campus.

Barred from accounting courses at the Harvard Business School (HBS) and wary of the courses offered at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), undergraduates feeling the lack of an accounting course in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences head downstream to MIT.

No Place to Call Home

Part of the problem is that accounting doesn't properly fall under the domain of any existing academic department at Harvard.

The subject is most closely affiliated with economics, but according to members of Harvard's Department of Economics, the connection is more tenuous than it might initially appear.

"[Accounting] isn't something professional economists involve themselves in," says Ropes Professor of Political Economy Richard E. Caves. "Business schools teach accounting."

According to Assistant Professor of Economics Christopher L. Foote, director of undergraduate studies in the

Department of Economics, the department doesn't have the faculty to teach an accounting course, and he doesn't feel they should be faulted for it.

"It's the same as asking why the biology department doesn't have someone who can teach physics," he says.

Ultimately, Foote suggests, FAS may omit the class from its course offerings because accounting isn't generally considered part of a liberal arts education.

"The University doesn't allow students to major in business--not the Economics Department," he says.

But although HBS offers the course, the school is notoriously reluctant to allow Harvard undergraduates into its classes.

According to spokesperson Maura Byrne, HBS policy prohibits cross-registration from the College because HBS students typically have several years of work experience that undergraduates lack.

"Most graduate level courses are just that--graduate level courses," she

says.

According to Byrne, HBS doesn't even offer an introductory accounting class that undergraduates might take--they assume that their students have picked up some accounting by the time they get to HBS.

In a statement, she says that "[W]e don't offer a basic course in accounting that lays out the nuts and bolts of debits and credits. All MBA students already have workplace experience, and our focus is on educating general managers."

And while the KSG accounting course is open to Harvard undergraduates, students say the course focuses more on the public rather than the private sector, and is less rigorous than the MIT course.

Faculty of Liberal Arts and Finances?

Dean of Undergraduate Education Frederick D. S. Choi at New York University's (NYU) Stern School of Business says things are different where he works.

Undergraduates at NYU are welcome to enroll in courses at Stern, provided there are extra spaces in the class. In fact, he thinks accounting should be part of any broad and comprehensive education.

"I very much believe in the analytical and critical thinking of a liberal arts education," he says, "....but it's anachronistic to think of accounting as a trade skill."

Choi complained that most people don't really understand what accounting is.

"Accounting is not just bookkeeping. It's more about how to read financial reports intelligently," he says. "Accounting is really the language of business."

And adults who do not understand that language, Choi suggests, are as inarticulate as adults who do not understand the language of mathematics, or the nature of language itself.

This "language of business," Choi suggests, is so fundamental that no one, regardless of their profession, can escape it.

"Eight years ago," he says, "I went out and taught accounting to people who provide care for the mentally disabled. They're real heroes, but what they didn't realize was that if they couldn't understand the accounting dimension, they couldn't go out and get the resources to execute their dreams; they couldn't qualify for state funding."

Widespread Interest

Despite the lack of an accounting course, however, there seems to be no lack of interest in learning the "language of business."

Last year, a full quarter of the students enrolled in MIT's fall and spring "Introduction to Financial and Managerial Accounting" courses were cross-registered from Harvard.

Some, like Goldberg, miss several days of classes because MIT's academic calendar does not align with Harvard's. Plus, cross-registered students reported difficulties in taking the course pass/fail.

Olivia Verma '00, a member of the Harvard Investment Association, says that she wishes it was easier to take accounting at Harvard.

"I'd like to have been able to explore more of the business side of economics....to explore financial institutions, how you value a company."