Athens, Ga. – Mark C. Dawkins, associate dean for academic programs and an accounting professor at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, has been named one of the first winners of the inaugural Ernst & Young Inclusive Excellence Award for Accounting and Business School Faculty.
Five faculty members from top business schools were selected for their extraordinary efforts to advance inclusiveness on their campuses.
Each winner was awarded $7,500 to be used for improving inclusiveness and diversity at their respective schools. The award recipients were announced in August at an Ernst & Young faculty reception during the American Accounting Association’s annual meeting in New York City.
The award winners were chosen from more than 260 nominations, based on their contribution to inclusiveness on their campuses through innovative teaching, research, or program development.Other criteria included their support and mentoring of diverse students and faculty, as well as their involvement with underrepresented minority students individually or through diversity-related organizations.
“Fostering diversity on college campuses is critical to developing the pipeline of diverse leaders for the future,” said Ken Bouyer, director of inclusiveness and recruiting for Ernst & Young. “These winners are helping prepare the next generation of business and accounting professionals through great teaching, mentoring, and a personal commitment to the success of all types of students.”
Dawkins just completed a year as president of the American Accounting Association’s Diversity Section and has served as president of the Black Faculty and Staff Organization at UGA since 2007.
He served as the faculty advisor to the Graduate Diversity Business Association and the Terry College chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants for more than a decade and now assists Randy Groomes in advising each organization. Groomes is the college’s director of diversity relations.
Dawkins also served as coordinator of the Georgia Society of CPAs High School Residency Program at UGA from its inception in 1999 through 2007. The summer program, which introduces underrepresented high school students to careers in accounting and business, has been expanded to the campus of Georgia Southern University. For his efforts, he was named GSCPA’s Accounting Educator of the Year for 2006. He also received Terry’s Outstanding Service Award in 2007, recognizing his professional and public service contributions as a faculty member.
The other four recipients of the Inclusive Excellence Award were: Matthew Anderson, Michigan State University; Karen Bird, University of Michigan; Michael Clement, University of Texas at Austin; and Cindy van Es, Cornell University.
Ernst & Young is a global firm that provides tax, transaction, assurance and other business advisory services, with 135,000 employees worldwide.