<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">The CSU, Stanislaus, accounting program is providing a new course that meets the university-wide upper-division writing requirement and offers accounting students additional professional study. While a writing skills course is not unusual in a business program, few offer an alternative centered on the accounting body of knowledge. Undergraduate students&rsquo; research questions are usually not addressed before graduate study and reinforce skills learned in their regular accounting courses. Initial reactions from students have ranged from appreciation for additional time spent on accounting topics to disappointment at missing out on the "general business" writing course. Continual reassessment of the course is planned.</span></span></p>

Although there has been much discussion about improving college student writing with college-level courses, little is known about how accounting programs, in particular, are addressing the writing proficiency challenge. This study surveys the 852 accounting programs in the United States to identify the frequency and types of accounting writing courses currently offered. Results indicate that few schools require an accounting-specific writing course or require students to pass any kind of writing proficiency test as juniors or seniors. Most programs do, however, require students to demonstrate English composition skills within several of the upper division accounting courses. Most department chairs do not believe that the graduates of their programs write well enough.

In 2011, Arum and Roksa challenged the higher education community to examine its practices and improve its performance in Academically Adrift. While recognizing the near universal accessibility achieved by American colleges and universities, the study suggested that students are not learning as well as they should. They measured academic rigor by considering the amount of reading and writing required of students and questioned whether courses are appropriately rigorous. Considering auditing as the accounting course most likely to require writing as well as reading, this study explored the auditing course for the condition of academic rigor as defined in the challenge.