I love what I do and that’s because my students make teaching such a rewarding profession.
Alan Sumutka ’72
Associate Professor of Accounting who has worked at Rider since 1977
Q: What’s the biggest change you’ve seen at Rider since you first started?
A: When I first started, Rider had an excellent reputation for accounting, though we only had an undergraduate degree and the program was staffed by mostly MBA/CPAs. Students could seek a winter internship during the month of January and participate in the Accounting Club.
Today, all my full-time colleagues are PhDs and avid researchers and the accounting program is nationally recognized. It also holds accreditation by AACSB, an international accrediting agency, and is one of only two N.J. colleges to hold such a recognized mark of excellence. Also, we now offer both undergraduate and graduate programs, and the online Master of Accountancy program is ranked as the eighth best in the country. Similarly, our forensic accounting program is ranked among the nation’s 10 best. Students have numerous year-round work opportunities in the form of shadowing experiences, internships and semester-long co-ops, where over 75% of our recent seniors had a paid internship or co-op. There are now four extracurricular accounting organizations where students learn outside of class and gain leadership skills. So much has changed in the past few decades.
Q: What about the University has not changed since you started?
A: The unceasing goal to improve the educational experience offered to our students.
Q: Why have you decided to dedicate so much time to Rider?
A: I love what I do and that’s because my students make teaching such a rewarding profession. Although I recognize that it’s the total Rider experience that helps students succeed and that I play a very small role in their development, it’s still gratifying to see them grow in class and succeed when they graduate. There’s a great satisfaction when they pass the CPA exam, come back to speak to my classes, recruit graduates, earn a partnership in their firm or become a CFO, start their own firm, teach for us as an adjunct faculty member, become a member of the Accounting Advisory Council, or are inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame. And then there are the very special cases, when student-faculty relationships turn into professional relationships, which turn into true friendships that last for many, many years.
Q: What is your best memory of your time here?
A: I have a number of great memories of Rider, as a faculty member and as a student.
As a student, I received a fine education, which propelled me into public accounting, private industry and then back to Rider. But it was baseball that had the greatest impact on me. I had the great fortune to be coached by Tom Petroff and Sonny Pittaro, both of whom are in the NCAA Baseball Hall of Fame. In retrospect, I realized that every day, they reinforced what my parents preached: discipline, respect, hard work and fair play, which I have carried into the classroom.
As a teacher, I have fond memories of my many talented, motivated and career-oriented students, who have become extremely successful. As a researcher, I’m very pleased with the work that I’ve conducted on tax-efficient retirement withdrawal planning and how it can help individuals make their money last during retirement. And personally, my recent induction into the Accounting Advisory Council Accounting Hall of Fame was a career event.
