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For nearly 150 years, Rider has been the place where careers in accounting begin, and as the industry continues to evolve, Rider’s College of Business Administration remains ahead of the curve. The CBA is now accepting applications for its for the fall 2013 semester, which is good news for accountants seeking to become licensed CPAs in New York and Pennsylvania.

Those states, like New Jersey, now require a total of 150 credit hours of education for accountants – an increase of 30 credits – to earn licensure, making Rider’s Online MAcc the right fit for working professionals.

“We want to enroll professional accountants, those who have been working in the field for one to five years who will now need those additional 30 credits to become certified public accountants,” said John Farrell, assistant dean for Graduate Business Programs. “This online program gets you ready for the CPA exam, and teaches you to be a better professional.”

Farrell says the program aims higher than simply providing additional credits to enrolled students.

“We’ve fine-tuned the program and achieved the right configuration to make it as meaningful as possible,” he explained. “Classes in hot, emerging branches of the field, like fraud and forensic accounting, are well represented.”

In fact, the allows students to pursue concentrations in forensic accounting, allowing Rider graduates to fill internal auditing positions mandated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which require internal controls to detect fraud within corporate accounting. The program also offers two accounting and skill development “in-person” seminars for professional development and networking.

The accelerated, 10-course program mirrors the requirements of Rider’s current MAcc program, with courses taught by a team of full-time and adjunct faculty with experience in teaching online courses. The degree requires 12 credit hours in four courses: Issues in Financial Reporting, Analysis of Accounting Data, International Dimensions of Accounting, and Seminar in Taxation. Students then fulfill their 18-credit elective requirements by choosing six of the following classes:

• Auditing: Practice and Cases
• Fraud and Forensic Accounting
• Fraud Detection and Deterrence
• Business Valuation
• Issues in Managerial Accounting
• Data Mining
• Business Law

Dr. Betsy Haywood-Sullivan, associate professor of Accounting, and Dr. Nandini Chandar, assistant professor of Accounting, both currently teach online courses in the MAcc Program and plan to teach courses in the online program.

Haywood-Sullivan has taught Issues in Managerial Accounting in class and online. The online class includes the film, Rogue Trader, a novel, weekly discussions, group cases and exams. She utilizes ShareStream’s video platform in order to guide her students through course materials online.

“The online discussion is more rigorous and dynamic,” she said. “The format allows students to communicate and collaborate within groups. Online classes give individuals more flexibility.”

Chandar, who teaches Business Valuations: Fundamentals, Techniques and Theory, said the students’ learning experience is well-served by the online format.

“It’s a very rich setting. It’s a collaborative setting. It’s a setting that enables me to seamlessly connect course material to the real world of business valuations,” she said.

For more information about the online MAcc Program, please visit the , contact Dr. Marge O’Reilly-Allen, Accounting department chair, at oreillyallen@rider.edu, or Jean Cherney at jcherney@rider.edu for Graduate Business Programs.