Posted on May 18, 2004 at 3:07 p.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) accounting professor Ollie Powers, M.A., has won the 2004 Ellen Gregg Ingalls/UAB National Alumni Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Teaching. He will be honored at the Alumni Leadership Recognition and Awards Luncheon at noon Thursday, September 23, at the Alys Stephens Center, 1200 10th Avenue South.
The award recognizes full-time, regular faculty members who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to teaching throughout their career at UAB. The award is presented annually and carries a $5,000 cash prize. Nominees must be past winners of the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Powers is being honored for his teaching and research in the areas of professional development in accounting and improving the teaching of accounting. He is an associate professor in the Department of Accounting and Information Systems, has been the advisor for Beta Alpha Psi — the national honorary and professional accounting society — for 17 years and was the director of undergraduate programs for the UAB School of Business until this past year.
“Professor Powers has taught accounting to several thousand students and has touched their lives in a way few individuals ever impact other people,” said Robert Holmes, Ph.D., dean of the UAB School of Business. “Over the years he has maintained very close contact with many of the graduates of our program and continues to serve as a mentor and career advisor to many of them. When I meet with alumni, almost without exception, Ollie Powers is the professor that they remember and ask about. And, he is one of the primary reasons that UAB students have consistently scored well on the uniform CPA exam, with the students exceeding the national passing rate by more than 30 percent on the sections covering material Ollie has taught.”
After being diagnosed with a serious lung disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, in the fall of 2002, Powers continued to teach with the assistance of portable oxygen. When his former students learned of his disease, a group of alumni came together in the summer of 2003 to honor Powers’ contributions to the UAB accounting program with the Ollie S. Powers Endowed Scholarship in Accounting. In three short months, the alumni raised more than $55,000 for the scholarship. Powers received a lung transplant in November 2003.
Powers’ research over the years also reflects his student orientation. He has published in The New Accountant, a journal for accounting students’ professional development. He also has published articles in professional teaching journals focusing on improving accounting education and has had several articles reprinted in college accounting textbooks.
Powers received the Ingalls Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching in 1987, School of Business Dean’s Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1987, President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1991, Loudell Ellis Robinson Excellence in Teaching Award in 1997 and S. Paul Garner Outstanding Educator Award presented by the Alabama Society of CPAs in 1999.
Powers earned his bachelor’s degree from Samford University in 1969 and his master’s degree in accounting from the University of Alabama in 1971. A Certified Management Accountant (CMA), he has been a full-time member of the UAB faculty since 1976.