Information Systems » Lansing Williams

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

Honor Board, Faculty Representative
Emergency Operations Group
Faculty Advisor, Enactus
Enactus United States Faculty Advisory Committee

Community Service

Kent County Ethics Commission
Board of Directors & Treasurer, Humane Society of Kent County
Treasurer, Windmill Class Association
Volunteer Sailing Instructor, Chester River Yacht and Country Club

Teaching Philosophy

Accounting has been described as the language of business. I view accounting as a book, telling the reader the life 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.

Information Systems