Kerry Inger, Harbert College Advisory Council Professor in the School of Accountancy, has won the preeminent teaching award from the American Accounting Association (AAA)—the first Auburn University faculty member to receive this distinction.

The AAA/J. Michael and Mary Anne Cook/Deloitte Foundation Prize recognizes up to three individuals who consistently demonstrate the attributes of a superior teacher at the undergraduate, graduate and two-year accounting degree programs. Inger is receiving the award for graduate-level teaching.

“Dr. Kerry Inger’s selection as the recipient of this award is a tremendous honor reflecting her innovative approach to accounting education,” said Harbert Dean Jennifer Mueller-Phillips. “This recognition not only honors her individual impact, but it also reflects the heart of Harbert College’s strategic mission: to deliver an exceptional student experience.”

“I was truly shocked when I won because there are a lot of truly wonderful educators just here at Auburn…not to mention all the people I know at other schools,” said Inger. “It reflects well on the whole School of Accountancy (SOA) at Auburn because we are a team of educators. My success is certainly attributed to all my Auburn colleagues. I hope they’re a little proud, too.”

Inger, whose research and teaching interests are in tax education, has taught Federal Tax Research in the SOA’s master of accountancy (MAcc) program for the past eight years along with Auburn colleagues Kim Key and Mollie Mathis. Their exceptional instruction and dedication have yielded great student outcomes.

“Our CPA pass rate for the tax part of the exam was 96% this past year,” said Inger, who attributes this achievement, in part, to the excellent caliber of Auburn MAcc students. “When you have great students, you can do great things in the classroom.”

Incidentally, the Auburn SOA student pass rate on the overall, four-part CPA exam is typically around 85%, exceeding the national average CPA pass rate of about 50%.

“Dr. Inger exemplifies the highest standards of teaching excellence, innovation, and mentorship,” said SOA Director Jonathan Stanley. “Her recognition by the American Accounting Association is a testament not only to her outstanding contributions in the classroom, but also to the collaborative, student-centered culture we’ve cultivated in the School of Accountancy. We are immensely proud of her and grateful for the national spotlight this brings to both her and Auburn’s accounting program.”

More than just a teacher

Teaching tax is challenging given that state and federal laws are constantly changing, so Inger focuses her tax research instruction on helping students learn to think critically so they’ll know where to find the latest rules and how to apply them rather than memorize tax code. She also focuses on the three branches of government, how bills become law and the judicial process.

“I find that learning the why of the tax laws gives students a solid framework to understand future tax policy and helps them master aspects of what they’re learning,” she said. 

Anna Claire Bourne took two undergraduate classes and the tax research graduate-level course with Inger and was on two SOA international trips that Inger helped chaperone. She appreciated Inger’s warm personality and described her as a mentor she could always turn to. She was also grateful for Inger’s classroom instruction.

“Dr. Inger was outstanding at encouraging independent thinking and research, giving us space to figure things out on our own while always being there to guide us when we needed it,” said Bourne (BS ’24, MAcc ’25), a tax associate at accounting and professional service firm PwC. “Her interactive teaching style, combined with the creative freedom she gave us in projects, made her classes both engaging and challenging in the best way.”

Recent graduate Ben Rice (BS ’23, MAcc ’25) has benefitted from Inger’s mentoring and overall passion for tax education and research, as well.

“She definitely solidified my decision [to go] into tax,” said Rice, pointing out that students select either tax or audit as their area of concentration early in their undergraduate training. “Dr. Inger, being the professor and mentor she is, allowed me to be excited and confident about my career path.”

Instructional innovations

Inger is passionate about developing innovative business tax cases that she incorporates in her teaching and publishes for use by fellow educators and practitioners. She used an assignment about the federal government’s ability to tax unrealized gains—a real-world issue that was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Moore v. United States. Inger also wrote an article about the case that was published in the ABA Tax Times, a journal for legal and tax professionals.

She co-authored a case that earned a national award from the American Taxation Association (ATA). The case focused on sales and excise tax compliance for out-of-state shipments. Students had to research state tax law, use data management techniques to apply those laws to a large dataset, and create data visualizations to aid managers with business decision-making.

One of Inger’s teaching innovations was having graduate students in the tax research course create podcasts that explain taxation-related topics that interested them—an idea that originated in the fall 2020 semester when many classes were forced to go online due to pandemic restrictions.

In their podcasts, students researched and described issues such as sports gambling and taxes, the history of income taxes and the tax liability of Olympic athletes.

“I needed a way for our class to feel connected without requiring additional hours in front of a screen,” said Inger, who has continued the team podcast projects because of their popularity and educational value. “We learn a lot about tax and a lot about each other as students’ individual personalities shine through.”

Inger published a paper in the Tax Advisor explaining the project assignment and the benefits to students.

She has embraced AI in her classroom assignments, allowing students to use tools like ChatGPT to help write a draft paper on one of the case studies taught in class. Inger then had the students fact-check and edit the paper using tax research databases like Bloomberg—essentially acting in the role of a senior associate in an accounting firm.

“We were able to sharpen our prompt-engineering skills while also seeing that fact checking is often necessary when utilizing these tools,” said Rice, who has accepted a tax accountant position with Ernst & Young after earning his MAcc degree in May.

The AI exercise was educational for Inger, as well as for the students and showcased the power and shortcomings of the technology.  For example, Inger said AI cited 15 court cases in one student’s paper, but not a single case even existed, so the technology isn’t perfect.  

“AI is getting better and can be a great tool,” she said. “Accounting firms will expect [students] to be able to use it, so I want them to be prepared for that.”

Inger has received numerous other teaching accolades, including Auburn’s prestigious Gerald and Emily Leischuck Endowed Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Alumni Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award, and the Harbert College's Lowder and McCartney teaching awards.

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Learn more about the AAA/Cook/Deloitte Foundation Prize.