Heather Glass knew from the time she ended her high school career that she wanted to pursue accounting.
Glass joined WKU in 2021, becoming a full-time professor at the Gordon Ford College of Business.
She started teaching Accounting 110 in the fall 2022 using a textbook.
“The textbook was not engaging or grasping the student’s attention,” Glass said.
Glass quickly realized that she needed to come up with a new style of teaching that would help to engage more of her students.
She knew of an alumni business, Clayton and Crume, a leather goods store based out of Louisville, KY, that she had followed from the beginning.
“Before becoming a full-time teacher I worked at a place on campus and I followed the journey with the alumni. They started out from a dorm room and now they have stores around the area here. It was the journey,” Glass said.
Glass explained she “loved that they gave back to Western and knew that [she] wanted to make this curriculum a reality.”
She now does not use the traditional textbook but employs the business of Clayton and Crume to teach her introductory accounting course.
“I spent a day at the Crayton and Crume facilities over the summer and developed the material,” Glass said
The new style of teaching has had positive remarks from her students.
Hayden Kirchberg, one of Glass’ students, said “learning the material through their business makes it easier for [him] to learn and more interesting to learn it.”
Averie Fitzhugh, another one of Glass’ students, agrees, “teaching the content without a textbook has allowed me to become more engaged in the material and understand it much easier.”
Fitzhugh added, “I look forward to attending her class each day” and that Glass has “played a large role in consideration of changing [her] major.”
Glass noted that she wanted her students to know “everyone can know accounting and having a basis of accounting will help you in your career and personal life.”
News Reporter Kaylee Hawkins can be reached at [email protected]
