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Lansing Williams

Assistant Professor of Business Management, Sam M. Walton Free Enterprise Fellow
Education
  • BS: University of Maryland, College Park, 1973
  • MBA: Loyola College of Baltimore, 1982
  • Certified Public Accountant
Teaching
  • BUS 112 Introduction to Financial Accounting
  • BUS 212 Introduction to Managerial Accounting
  • BUS 340 Intermediate Accounting
  • BUS 341 Income Tax Accounting
  • BUS 342 Auditing
Campus Service
  • Benefits and Finance Committee
  • Emergency Operations Group
  • Faculty Advisor, Enactus
  • Enactus United States Faculty Advisory Committee
Community Service
  • Kent County Ethics Commission
  • Board of Directors, Humane Society of Kent County
  • Treasurer, Windmill Class Association
  • Board of Directors, Common Ground on the Hill, Ltd.
  • Board of Directors, Rock Hall Yacht Club Sailing School   
Teaching Philosophy

Accounting has been described as the language of business. I view accounting as a book, telling the reader the life of a business, and the health of a business, only using numbers rather than words.

In the classroom, I help my students understand that language, help them learn to write the book, and then how to interpret the book, so that they can understand where a company has been, and where it might be going.

Before coming to Washington College, I spent over 35 years in the corporate accounting world, first on the audit trail with a large regional accounting firm in the Washington DC area, then in the corporate environment, and later as a consultant helping small and start-up companies who needed accounting, financial software, and Chief Financial Officer support.

When I’m teaching, I often draw on my real-world experience to supplement textbook explanations and procedures with practical techniques–not exactly tricks, but solutions to thorny or pesky problems that might not even be mentioned in a textbook.

Over the years in industry, my greatest joy was meeting with a group of people to discuss their vision of a company, helping them put their vision on paper, developing a business plan, translating the words in the business plan into a five-year financial plan, presenting those plans to potential investors, creating a financial accounting system, and implementing the plan into reality: in essence, helping bring a dream to life.

Now I do that with young accounting students, by teaching them accounting skills and helping them connect those skills with real-world activities and situations.