MSAF program featured in Torch Article

Walter E. Heller College of Business Administration

New accounting program to aid in preventing financial crime
Matthew Wilson
Roosevelt Torch Issue date: 10/12/09 Section: Business

This year, some Roosevelt accounting students are enrolled in a new accounting program, that deals with how to stop and prevent financial crimes from occurring when they go to work for an accounting firm, according to Deborah Pavelka, an accounting professor who helped develop the program.

Pavelka teaches ACCT 474 - Anti-Money Laundering - a course in the new Masters of Science in Accounting Forensics program. The MSAF program was created for students who earned their certificates in fraud examination. The certification program began in the fall 2005 semester.

The demand for fraud examination is there, Pavelka said, even at the larger companies.

The class also studies financial statements and bribery in the work place. Pavelka said frauds are not complex, but people are unsure if they have witnessed one happen to themselves or a co-worker.

"It's trying to prevent it and it's trying to detect it, because there is so much fraud going on," Pavelka said of the new masters program.

"We took a look at jobs and demand among jobs through employers, and there was [a demand]," she said. "The big accounting firms were setting up their forensics divisions in their larger companies

In addition, Pavelka said all companies have to comply by the Sarbanes-Oxley law, signed in 2002, which is intended to protect investors with accurate disclosures.

She added that Chicago's notorious mobster, Al Capone is a classic example of fraud.

"We're learning about the ways he did money laundering," Pavelka said. "You have to recognize the laws on money laundering, it didn't become illegal until 1986."

She added that, before then, laundering money was considered only unethical.

Monique Muller, an accountant at a flooring company in Elgin, is finishing her certification for fraud examination with Pavelka's anti-money laundering course.

Muller said she enjoys working in the accounting department, but does not think the company she works for will be able to last through the bitter economy for another year. She hopes to find work by relocating with her certification.

"This is my last course here and it's very interesting," Muller said.

She added that she has learned that fraud has been going on "since the beginning of time."

"If there was a way to rip somebody off, they did it," she said.

Students that have graduated from the certification program have gone to work for "the big accounting firms," Pavelka said. Those firms include PriceWaterHouseCooper, KPMG, Deloitte and Grant Thorton.

Undine Stinnette, associate dean of the department of accounting, said the MSAF was approved in the spring of 2009, while developments had been in progress for two years prior.

She said that the certification in fraud examination is a five course program students can take after they receive their bachelors. Certifications can take from one to two years, depending on the students scheduling.

The MSAF degree requires completion of 31 semester hours - 11 courses - through eight core courses and three elective courses. To see a complete description of the program, students can visit the Web site: http://roosevelt.edu/business/msaf.htm