School of Accounting and Finance

School of Accounting and Finance Fellowship Honourees

William R. Scott, BComm, MBA, PhD, FCA

Born in Los Angeles, Bill Scott grew up in Ottawa. He attended Carleton University, where he won the Commerce Medal in 1953. He then worked for McDonald, Currie & Co. (now Coopers & Lybrand), where he obtained his Chartered Accountant designation in 1956, following which he worked as accountant, later treasurer, for an Ottawa construction company. During this period, he taught part-time at Carleton, and joined its faculty full-time in 1961. In 1966 he enrolled in the School of Business of the University of Chicago, receiving his MBA and Ph.D.

Bill returned to the faculty at Carleton, and moved to the School of Business of Queen’s University in 1970, where he taught until 1983. In 1983, he joined the faculty of the School of Accounting and Finance of the University of Waterloo, from which he retired in 1995. Upon retiring, he was awarded the honour of Distinguished Professor Emeritus by the University.

Bill has published research articles in the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, Journal of Accounting Literature, Contemporary Accounting Research, and several other journals and books. He is the author of Financial Accounting Theory, a textbook published by Pearson Education, Canada, currently in its 5th edition. Chinese and Japanese translations of this text have also been published. His honours and awards include the CAAA Haim Falk prize for Distinguished Contribution to Accounting Thought in 1968, Fellow of the Ontario Institute of Chartered Accountants in 1985, and the L.S. Rosen Outstanding Educator award of the CAAA in 2005. He was the Clarkson, Gordon Professor of Accounting at Queen’s from 1983-1986, and held the Ontario Chartered Accountants' Chair in Accounting at Waterloo from 1991- 1996.

Since retiring, Bill has maintained his textbook, and teaches part-time at Queen’s where he is currently an adjunct professor in the School of Business. He is a member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Canadian AcSB, and of the AcSB’s Conceptual Framework Discussion Group.

Bill and his wife Mary Ann raised 5 children. They reside in Perth, Ontario. Bill has served for several years on the Board of Directors of Community and Primary Health Care, a non-profit agency delivering a variety of health-related services to the Brockville and Perth areas. He is currently Treasurer of this agency.

2008 Fellow: Gavin Pereira