Chartered Accountancy fête

 

A combined graduation and anniversary celebration for the Diploma in Chartered Accountancy program was held at the downtown Faculty Club on Feb. 16. The grads are students who write the UFE, the uniform final examination that enables accountancy grads to win the designation CA.

Director Wendy Roscoe recalled the early days of the program, which was started by Professor George Lowenfeld at the urging of Professor Neil Van Zant, who was, at that time, the chair of the department.

“In those days, it was not necessary to pursue a programme de deuxieme cycle in order to be able to write the UFE, and only two Quebec universities, Concordia and McGill, had developed programs that were designed to improve the success rate of students on the brutal UFE.

“While results in the early years were, at best, mediocre, through the years, our little program grew, and eventually became very successful.”

In fact, for years, until Concordia’s diploma program was widely imitated, CTR was able to report success in the UFE out of all proportion to national and provincial success rates.

The 25th graduating class comprised 75 students, of whom three were on the National Honour Roll of the Uniform Final Exam: Jonathan Graham, now at KPMG accountants, who obtained his undergraduate degree from Concordia; Kathryn Johnston, of Ernst and Young, who came from the University of New South Wales, Australia; and Bradley Wells, also of Ernst and Young, who did the honours accounting program at McGill before coming to Concordia.