The SUNY Fredonia School of Business has proposed to SUNY and the State Education Department a new Master of Science degree in accounting that will ensure students meet future requirements to sit for the CPA exam in New York State. If approved as expected, the Fredonia program will begin in the Fall 2004 semester.
 
State approval of the 30-hour master's degree is the final hurdle along the way toward maintaining SUNY Fredonia's status as a registered accounting program, School of Business Director James Hurtgen said. Currently, Fredonia's 120-hour undergraduate program meets the state requirements to take the CPA exam, but as of 2004, all incoming freshmen in an accounting program will be required to complete 150 hours before taking the exam. Fredonia's proposal puts the additional 30 hours into a master's degree that can be completed in one year, meaning the Fredonia accounting student can plan on a five year program to complete two degrees and become qualified to sit for the state CPA licensing exam.
 
Coordinated by accounting faculty member at SUNY Fredonia Linda A. Hall, Ph.D., the new master's degree will combine technical training in accounting with a focus on research, taxation, finance, communication and business ethics. "A selling point is that our program can be finished in one year," Dr. Hall said.
 
A team of external evaluators visited Fredonia at its request to evaluate the proposed program, and they gave it an outstanding review. The team, made up of accounting faculty from other universities, said that the program's strengths would be the Fredonia business faculty and the campus facilities, and its competitiveness would come from being a high-quality yet affordable program available in the Southern Tier region.
 
The Fredonia School of Business already offers undergraduate degrees in accounting, finance, management information systems, management, marketing, and economics. Dr. Hurtgen said the additional master's degree would strengthen all of the programs, "…just as accounting provides the backbone for a business organization."