Southern Miss School of Accountancy

All accounting students and alumni are strongly encouraged to participate, regardless of graduation date.

Student preregistration may be completed through Handshake.

Student resumes should be critiqued by [email protected] before uploading into Handshake.

See https://www.usm.edu/accountancy/meet-firms.php for additional information.

Calling all Accounting Students, Alumni, and Employers!! 📣📣📣

Please REGISTER TODAY for our annual Meet the Firms career fair event at Southern Miss!

Thursday, September 10, 2026
5:00-7:00PM
The University of Southern Mississippi
Hattiesburg Campus
Trent Lott National Center

You can register now using the link in our bio and provided in the comment below! ✨

Celebrating Leadership & Welcoming New Beginnings!

The School of Accountancy is excited to celebrate Amber Hatten, CPA, for 12 incredible years of leadership as Director of the Master of Professional Accountancy (MPA) graduate program! Amber has taught, mentored, and guided so many students on their journey to becoming CPAs and leaders across Mississippi and beyond. Her impact is felt every day in the success of our graduates.

Amber is now stepping into a new chapter - focusing full-time on what she loves most: teaching and mentoring future accounting professionals. We’re grateful for her dedication and thrilled that our students will continue to learn from her passion and expertise.

We’re also excited to welcome Dr. Matthew Sargent as the new Director of the MPA program! Dr. Sargent brings a powerful combination of academic achievement and more than 25 years of leadership experience with organizations like PwC, KPMG, Charles Schwab, and Wells Fargo. His background in auditing, compliance, information security, and risk management will help lead the program into an exciting future.

Join us in celebrating Amber and welcoming Dr. Sargent to his new role!

The School of Accountancy is proud to announce that 3 of our Southern Miss accounting students have been named PCAOB Scholars for the 2026-2027 Academic Year!

Congratulations to Deamy Alvarado, Johnnie Bines, and Mariya Jaufre' on this outstanding achievement!

Registration is open for USM's annual Meet the Firms event that is taking place Thursday, September 10th from 5:00-7:00PM in the Trent Lott National Center. All accounting students and alumni are encouraged to participate, regardless of graduation date.

You can register now using the link in our bio! ✨

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Mark your calendars today & begin preparing for this fall's USM School of Accountancy Meet the Firms event, scheduled for Thursday, September 10, 2026. 📣

Please create your student profile in Handshake and contact [email protected] for your resume critique.

All USM accounting students – in all classes and at all classification levels (freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate students) – should plan to attend the Meet the Firms event, so please save at the link provided below as soon as possible, so that you can remain up-to-date on all of the details as the event date approaches. Registration starts July 1st.

https://www.usm.edu/accountancy/meet-firms.php

We are looking forward to another great event, with the hope that Meet the Firms will result in many internship and full-time job offers for our outstanding accounting students at Southern Miss!

SMTTT!

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The School of Accountancy would like to congratulate Ms. Amber Hatten on being selected as USM's 2026 recipient of the Emerging Graduate Mentor Award.

This university-wide recognition is awarded by the University of Southern Mississippi Graduate School and celebrates a faculty member whose dedication to graduate mentorship is shaping lives, scholarship, and the future of the academic community.

Ms. Amber Hatten, CPA, joined the Southern Miss faculty in 2012 as a Professor of Practice after an 11-year professional career with KPMG, LLP in Jackson, Mississippi, and she has served as Director of the Master of Professional Accountancy (MPA) graduate degree program since 2014.

During her past 12 years as MPA Director, Ms. Hatten has taught and mentored hundreds of students and walked alongside each of them as they completed their master's degrees, prepared for the CPA exam, searched for professional job opportunities, and began their careers in accounting.

We are proud of Ms. Hatten and are thankful for her ongoing commitment and tireless efforts in supporting and mentoring our students, and we appreciate all that she does for the School of Accountancy.

Congratulations, Ms. Hatten!

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The School of Accountancy would like to congratulate Mrs. Amber Cole as she leaves USM and begins her next chapter and thank her for her many years of dedicated service to the university and to our students!

Mrs. Cole, a Louisiana State University (LSU) accounting graduate and USM Master of Professional Accountancy (MPA) program alumna (2012), has been the face of ACC 200, Introduction to Financial Accounting, for thousands of our students over the past 13 years.

She has taught more than 114 sections of Introduction to Financial Accounting (ACC 200), along with Intermediate Accounting I (ACC 325) and Intermediate Accounting II (ACC 327), and she has also led our International Study Abroad program in London, England.

In addition to teaching, she has managed significant service responsibilities in support of the School, the College, and the University, including but not limited to her roles as Assessment of Learning (AoL) Director for the School of Accountancy, Chair of the Undergraduate Programs and Assessment Committee (UPAC) for the College of Business and Economic Development, and four years of service the USM Faculty Senate, including serving as Chair of the Faculty Senate Finance Committee.

She was awarded the College of Business and Economic Development Faculty Service Award in 2022, which recognizes a faculty member's excellence in service contributions to their program, school, college, and university, as well as their work in building connections and partnerships with external business stakeholders, and she was also named the Fred T. Neely CPA Gold Medalist by the Mississippi Society of Certified Public Accountants (MSCPA), for earning the highest score on the CPA exam in the state of Mississippi in 2013.

We are so grateful for the dedication Mrs. Cole has given to the USM School of Accountancy and our students during her time here, and we will miss her tremendously. Thank you, Mrs. Cole!

The School of Accountancy would like to congratulate Dr. Nell Adkins on her retirement!

Dr. Adkins joined the faculty at USM after previous faculty positions at both the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of Houston. She came “home” to Southern Miss in 2011, returning to the institution where she earned both her BSBA-Accounting and Master of Professional Accountancy (MPA) degrees, before beginning her professional career in the Jackson office of KPMG LLP and later completing her PhD at Florida State University.

She has spent the past 15 years at Southern Miss serving as a cornerstone of our tax and financial reporting curriculum. She has taught Intermediate Accounting I (ACC 325) to our undergraduate accounting students and Corporate and Partnership Taxation (ACC 630) to our MPA students, along with Introduction to Financial Accounting (ACC 200). Students consistently characterize her as one of the best teachers at Southern Miss and attribute much of their success on the CPA exam and in their professional accounting careers to the preparation that she provides in her classes.

In addition to her exceptional teaching, she has served the School, the College, and the University on numerous committees and in immeasurable ways. She has also published her research in the Journal of Accounting Education, The Tax Adviser, and the Journal of Accountancy. She has been honored with the USM Gold Leaf Award (2025), the College of Business and Economic Development Joseph A. Greene Teaching Excellence Award (2024), and the Mississippi Society of Certified Public Accountants (MSCPA) Accounting Educator of the Year Award (2023), among others.

In her time at Southern Miss, Dr. Adkins has taught, mentored, and championed thousands of students now serving as CPAs and leaders across Mississippi and beyond, and she has served as an exceptional colleague and friend.

On behalf of our faculty, staff, alumni, and students, we thank her for her many years of dedicated service. She leaves USM having made a meaningful difference in the lives of countless students, and we wish her every success and much happiness in her next chapter.

Congratulations to Koriona Crenshaw for receiving this year's FORVIS award at the Golden Quills Ceremony hosted by the College of Business! Sponsored by the CPA firm Forvis Mazars, this award honors an outstanding senior accounting major who has demonstrated strong scholastic and leadership abilities.

The School of Accountancy is proud to recognize Koriona for her dedication and hard work throughout the 2025-2026 school year! 🦅

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