Hodge wins 2014 PACCAR Award for Excellence in Teaching

Frank Hodge, a professor of accounting at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, has won the 2014 PACCAR Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The Foster School’s highest teaching honor was established in 1998 by PACCAR Inc, the Fortune 200 global technology company based in Bellevue, Washington. The PACCAR Award’s annual recipient is selected by a panel of Foster MBA students.

Hodge is the Emmett S. Harrington Endowed Professor of Accounting and chair of the Department of Accounting at the Foster School. He teaches the financial accounting course in the MBA core where his students have responded to his distinctive approach to teaching by calling him “Coach.”

Professor Coach

Hodge’s hallmark in the classroom is his enthusiasm for the subject of accounting—the indispensable “language of business”—and his dedication to the development of each of his students.

This is not lost on them.

“Coach shows so much passion for both accounting and his students that you want to perform well and make him proud,” wrote one MBA student in nominating Hodge for the PACCAR Award. “He continues to be a great resource and support to his students long after his course ends, a true sign of an outstanding teacher.”

Another called Hodge “one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable, yet humble, approachable, and downright friendly professors I have ever met.”

A third summed his contribution simply: “He leads like the coach of a championship team.”

For his part, Hodge says that he introduces himself to MBA students as their accounting coach, someone who will enable and inspire them to achieve a level of accounting knowledge that they could not have achieved on their own.

“Being selected for this prestigious award suggests that I was able to fulfill my role as their coach, and that they see value in the material they learned,” he says. “I am truly honored to receive the PACCAR Award, and feel blessed to have had the chance to get to know the outstanding students in our MBA program.”

Distinguished career

Hodge earned a BA degree from Carroll College in 1988, then worked three-year stints as quality control manager for Pacific Lumber & Shipping Company and U.S. representative for Namera Trading Company. After earning his MBA and PhD from Indiana University, he joined the Foster School in 2000.

Excellence in teaching and research have earned Hodge a passel of awards at Foster. In addition to this year’s PACCAR Award, he also received the 2014 Charles E. Summer Outstanding Teaching Award and the Dan Siegel Service Award. Previous acknowledgements include the Technology Management MBA Excellence in Teaching Award (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013), the Dean’s Award for Graduate Teaching (2012), the Wells Fargo Faculty Award for Undergraduate Teaching (2010), the Herbert O. Whitten Professor of Accounting (2009-2013), the William A. and Helen I. Fowler Endowment for Special Achievement in Accounting (2008), the Dean’s Faculty Research Award (2007), Undergraduate Faculty of the Year for Accounting (2005, 2007, 2012), and the Dean’s Junior Faculty Research Award (2006).

Hodge was appointed to the first Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative in 2007, and has served on the editorial boards of The Accounting Review; Accounting, Organizations & Society; Behavioral Research in Accounting; and Contemporary Accounting Research.

His own research investigates financial reporting and financial statement analysis, and investment decisions using accounting information. Recently published studies have found that clawback provisions make CEOs more accountable for a firm’s financial reporting, that managers tend to overvalue stock options, and that announcing a restatement via online video can limit damage to investor trust.

PACCAR and its founding Pigott family are longtime supporters of the Foster School. In addition to the PACCAR Award and three endowed faculty positions, support from the Pigott family and company was instrumental in building PACCAR Hall, the Foster School’s 135,000-square-foot classroom facility that was completed in 2010.

Previous PACCAR Award Winners

Karma Hadjimichalakis (1998)
Stephan Sefcik (1999)
Elizabeth Stearns (2000)
Jennifer Koski (2001)
Ali Tarhouni (2002)
Robert Higgins (2003)
Jane Kennedy (2004)
Daniel Turner (2005)
Mark Forehand (2006)
Mark Hillier (2007)
Jennifer Koski (2008)
Shailendra Jain (2009)
Thomas Gilbert (2010)
Lance Young (2011)
Erich Studer-Ellis (2012)
Mark Hillier (2013)