Accounting Professor Fred Phillips is unstoppable when it comes to winning teaching awards. Last Saturday, January 14^th, Phillips was presented with his most recent one: the Innovation in Auditing and Assurance Education Award by the American Accounting Association (AAA.)

“This is yet another acknowledgement of Fred Phillips’ extraordinary talent as an educator,” says nominator and Accounting Department Head Ganesh Vaidyanathan. “Fred is humble and a great colleague and this recognition is well-deserved.”

The award serves to encourage innovation and improvement in auditing and assurance, topics Phillips has addressed both in his research and with his Edwards students. That the award is given by the academic auditing community in the US holds significance to Phillips, not only because the community comprises academics from some of the best schools in the world, but because it includes some of his own former professors from his doctoral program at the University of Texas.

Although Phillips appreciates such large scale recognition, it’s his passion for accounting education that continues to drive him. “Winning an award like the 3M National Teaching Fellowship or the AAA's Auditing and Assurance Innovation Award gives me a warm feeling but not the stimulating jolt that occurs when I see the aha moment when helping students,” he says. “Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for how the awards validate the work I do outside the classroom but helping a student experience that aha moment will always be the best reward for teaching.”

And so he remains modest about his success despite having won awards at the college, university, national and now international levels. “I am still the same guy who works hard to develop good classroom materials and sometimes struggles to get my papers published,” he says. “Rather, I've accumulated a body of work that others now recognize as significant. I have to say that it's rewarding to know that a sizable group of people find my work helpful to them.”

Perhaps Dean of the Edwards School Daphne Taras sums it up best. “Fred Phillips is the most innovative and effective accounting professor in the world.”