Teaching Success, Attitude Add Up to Honor for Accounting Professor

Dr. Rebecca Files says she sees herself not only as a researcher and teacher, but as a mentor to future business leaders in her role as assistant professor of accounting at UT Dallas. 

“I sincerely believe that I have the best job in the world,” she said. “My favorite part of teaching is building relationships with my students, which I hope has a lasting impact on them.” 

Files’ attitude and success in teaching helped her earn a 2014 UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. 

This is the second teaching award she has received in the past two years. Files was also a recipient of the President’s Outstanding Teaching Award in 2013. 

She teaches introductory and intermediate accounting in the Naveen Jindal School of Management. In her role, Files says she tries to encourage students to consider jobs in accounting, which she says can be a rewarding and lucrative career. 

Her approach to teaching also inspires students and makes accounting fun and interesting. 

“I think there are a lot of misconceptions about the accounting profession,” she said. “Accountants are outgoing and engaging individuals who need to be adept at handling a wide range of social interactions.” 

She says walking into class every day provides an opportunity for her to counter those misconceptions. Her excitement about accounting and her lessons are geared toward capturing students’ attention and showing them the larger picture of the field. 

Files achieved academic and athletic honors as a volleyball player at Texas A&M University, where she was named the Bill Erwin Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2003 and earned the Big 12 Conference Postgraduate Scholarship in 2004.

Later, she was awarded the Mays Business School Regents’ Fellowship and Ernst & Young Doctoral Fellowship at Texas A&M. 

Prior to receiving her doctorate, Files worked as a teaching assistant and researcher at the Mays Business School, where she focused on voluntary disclosures and earnings restatements. She has taught at UT Dallas since 2009. 

Her research efforts focus on financial misconduct within firms and how decision-making has a significant impact on external parties and their responses to misconduct.

“My hope is that each and every student will walk away from my class with an appreciation for the importance of accounting to our economy,” Files said. “And, more than that, I hope that they are excited about being a part of this profession when they graduate.”