When Alexia Jentgen started her BYU Marriott education, she never imagined her work would be published on a project website with a vast international audience. The School of Accountancy intends to make the project—named the Hub—into the number one online resource for accounting information. Working on the Hub project provided Jentgen and her fellow student authors with invaluable opportunities to research, write, and collaborate with industry experts.
BYU Marriott’s School of Accountancy (SOA) has consistently proven itself to be one of the best accounting schools in the nation— regularly earning top-three national rankings for both its undergraduate and graduate programs—and plans to continue leading the way forward with the Hub.
The Hub project currently consists of three different websites filled with vetted student-written articles that address real-world accounting and general business topics. RevenueHub.org, IPOHub.org, and InternationalHub.org all boil down complex topics into plain-English articles. Each website is meant to be a free resource of high-quality content to help run a business. “We’ve created a network of resources on specific business topics that are relevant to people worldwide,” explains Jeff Wilks, SOA director and EY Professor.
The Beginning
The Hub project began more than five years ago with discussions between Wilks and his research assistants about creating a resource for companies facing the implementation of a new revenue recognition standard. Wilks came up with the idea to have students produce articles that address the new standard, which they would then publish online on a site dubbed RevenueHub. Cassy Budd, an SOA teaching professor, joined Wilks to help lead the project, while Connor Group, a specialized professional services f irm of Big Four alumni and industry executives, signed on to provide financial backing and professional resources.
The current model for each of the Hub sites calls for students to do their own research and writing. Each student is assigned a topic during weekly Hub team meetings. The Hub team for each site is made up of student authors, faculty members, and Connor Group professionals. The student authors research their assigned topics and then write and refine their articles to the best of their ability. They peer review with other student authors before giving their articles to either faculty members or a Connor Group professional for technical review. Next, the articles go to alumni practicing in fields relevant to the topics to make sure the information is current and accurate. Finally, articles go through a grammar-usage review before publication.
To get involved in the Hub, students are required to first take an accounting research class. Once they have completed the course, students can apply to join the team and interview with professors and Connor Group associates. Prospective student authors must show that they are committed and prepared to work as a team to create relevant, compelling content.
“Students improve dramatically when they have to research and write about in-depth, practical, realworld issues,” Wilks says. “So we wanted them writing. But we didn’t just want their professors reading their articles—we wanted to have our students work with professionals and get their writing out in front of everyone.”
RevenueHub
The pioneer website of the Hub project, RevenueHub provides a resource for business professionals, but involvement in the project has also become a season for students to learn and grow as they research, write, and collaborate with peers and professionals. “Working on the Hub project gave us a window into the real accounting world,” says Cole Moffat, 2017 MAcc graduate and past Hub author. “It was cool to have contacts in the current, practicing field.” This first Hub project established a process that other Hub sites would follow. Students on the Hub team dive deep into accounting topics they don’t necessarily learn about in class. And by counseling with working professionals to decide on topics and brainstorming with their peers on article direction, students have chances to collaborate in impactful ways. They also accomplish the feat of having their hard work published for the world to see.
“This project is important for students because it challenges us to grow and connect to various industries from this end of accounting that we probably wouldn’t have otherwise, especially this early on,” says Jentgen, a 2018 MAcc graduate. “Not only do we develop our writing and comprehension skills but also our ability to work with professionals and to understand and get involved with complex topics that we definitely will see as we go through our careers.”
RevenueHub’s articles originally focused on the new revenue standard, but once companies had implemented the standard, the team began discussing what would come next. The Hub team decided to shift gears and focus the articles on topics businesses consistently face, including issues that regulators worry about, how industries implement the standard, and how the United States Securities and Exchange Commission enforces the new standard.
IPOHub
While the team figured out where to take RevenueHub, Connor Group also suggested that the student authors start writing articles focused on the issues that companies face when going public—and IPOHub was born. The same team of students continued to write articles about revenue, but they also adjusted their focus to work hand-in-hand with Connor Group to produce content that would walk businesses through IPO issues.
Chapman Ellsworth, a 2018 MAcc graduate, had the opportunity to work on both RevenueHub and IPOHub during his time as a student. “When I started out, I didn’t realize how important the things were that I was writing about,” Ellsworth says. “I think the value of Revenue Hub and IPOHub is that we’re able to work with professionals who actually know how things work and what issues are relevant, so we’re able to create a resource that people can actually use.”
InternationalHub
In addition to expanding the Hub project to include IPO issues, Hub team members started discussing other directions that the Hub concept could take. The professors knew that the student authors were preparing to become leaders and adapt to new issues and topics that emerge in the fluid business world. In the meantime, the school received a grant given from EY with the specific purpose to improve the SOA’s global competence.
The Hub seemed like the ideal channel to help pursue that initiative. “We decided to involve one of our most internationally minded professors, Greg Burton,” Wilks says. “He picked his own team of students, and they came up with InternationalHub.” The InternationalHub team focuses not only on accounting but also on international business and cross-cultural relationships within that sphere.
“We are a school that has an international draw and reputation,” Burton observes. “We have one of the largest bilingual student bodies out of business schools, and we knew we had students with international interests. So we capitalized on that.” The InternationalHub team writes about topics such as how culture impacts business, navigating differences in perception and attitude, and understanding the structure of foreign businesses. In addition, shortly after they started writing Hub articles, the student authors came up with the idea of producing podcasts. Conducting live interviews, they proposed, would be an effective and interesting way to incorporate professionals with international business experience into the Hub project.
Students reached out to people they knew through their own international experiences and to experts who had presented in their classes; they even cold-contacted professionals they wanted to meet. Dillon Papenfuss, a 2018 MAcc graduate, helped produce the first podcast, called Cultural Conversations. “We interviewed professionals working around the world to help our listeners develop a more global perspective,” Papenfuss says.
“The Hub team and podcast listeners alike have developed an appreciation for people who do things differently than we do and possibly better than we do,” Burton says. “The students who work on this project will become so versed in foreign cultures, so sensitive and open to other ideas and to what the world has to offer, that it will change them forever.”
Burton says his long-term vision for InternationalHub is to broaden the project to include all of BYU Marriott, because each department has unique viewpoints to add to the international business discussion. He hopes that InternationalHub will expand to include resources written by students from every BYU Marriott major.
Looking Forward
Many of the students who have worked on the Hub project—including Jentgen and Moffat—have secured internships and career opportunities because of the knowledge and connections they gained through their work on the Hub.
Jentgen and Moffat both accepted positions with prestigious national organizations that were impressed with the in-depth research and analysis they each had done. “We were prepared for the hard, technical accounting interviews because we were familiar with difficult accounting principles and how to apply them to real-world situations,” Moffat says.
Jentgen says her work on the Hub project gave her exposure and credibility and showed what BYU Marriott’s SOA students are capable of. “This experience is a huge résumé builder, but I also had the chance to personally learn, grow, and connect,” she says.
Ellsworth nailed down an internship with Connor Group through the Hub connections he made. Brett Riley, a 2015 MAcc graduate, scored a fellowship opportunity with the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, along with an internship with Connor Group. He is currently working in a senior consulting position at Deloitte. “The information on the Hub is incredibly valuable,” Riley says. “I still reference it in my job, and I refer people to it when they have issues.”
Because the Hub project has provided such invaluable experience for students and excellent resources for business professionals, colleagues from other universities have approached the SOA wanting to get involved. “My long-term dream is that business schools everywhere would allow their students to research and write about real-world issues and have their work published, like our students do here with the Hub,” Wilks says. “It makes a much more vibrant learning environment.”
With more than ten thousand readers a month, RevenueHub reaches people across the globe, while IPOHub and InternationalHub are continuing to expand worldwide. The SOA may also launch other sites, potentially centered on tax policy and healthcare, in the future.
“We don’t know what will happen going forward, but the last thing I’m worried about is traffic,” Wilks says. “We’re already reaching our goal of getting students to research real issues that matter currently, and they’re being advised on those issues by people who are out in practice. So if this serves an important need as well, that’s just icing on the cake.”
Check out the hub websites
- Revenue Hub: revenuehub.org
- IPO Hub: ipohub.org
- International Hub: internationalhub.org
If you have an idea for future articles, please contact us through the respective websites.
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Written by Katelyn Bowen
Illustrations by Daniel Hertzberg