Lansing Williams
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.