Professor Profiles: Katherine Schipper, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business

January 18th, 2012

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they select a program to attend, but the educational experience at business school is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Each Wednesday, we profile a standout professor as identified by students. Today, we focus on Katherine Schipper from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Katherine Schipper (“Financial Accounting”) is the Thomas F. Keller Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Law at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business and usually teaches the MBA program’s core accounting course, “Financial Accounting.” Schipper was editor of the Journal of Accounting Research for many years and was also a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board from 2001 to 2006, before joining Fuqua. In 2007, Schipper was the first woman inducted into the Accounting Hall of Fame, which has inducted only 85 people since it was established. A second-year student we interviewed who had taken the course “Global Institutions and Environment” with Schipper (co-taught by Professor Jennifer Francis) said, “She was outstanding. It was amazing to have professors of their caliber teaching the first class we experienced at Fuqua.” Another second year told us, “I was really nervous about accounting, but she made it very accessible, and even occasionally fun.”