Identity, Variety and Destiny in Accounting Education for a Social—Environmental and Liberal Arts Tradition

Abstract

When one considers that all profits are not made equally, philosophy, history, anthropology become pre-requisites for professional accounting and finance graduates. This allows for a complete understanding of an intimately related financial market that exerts tremendous influence
on socio-economic conditions. A graduate from a liberal arts institution may be worth more than what his or her academic balance sheet shows.  A liberal arts education teaches one how to think, how to analyze, how to read, how to write, how to develop a persuasive argument. Any liberal arts
education, even vaguely defined becomes an intellectual antidote to the
overwhelming flood of information and technological change.  A liberal arts education teaches students to read and to reason; to learn something about the range of human expression; to consider the great literature and
ideas of world civilizations; to recognize and construct arguments; and to have sensitivity towards others’ thinking.  It also makes possible a genuine kind of citizenship without which democracy and markets crumble.
This study presents emerging trends in accounting as a growing discipline in liberal arts institutions whose mission is aligned with social goals.