Accounting professors awarded Lean Education Advancement Foundation Scholarship

Paula Weller, senior lecturer in accounting, and Pieter Swanepoel, lecturer in accounting, were recognized as recipients of the Lean Education Advancement Foundation (LEAF) Scholarship at the 2017 Lean Accounting and Manufacturing Summit in Savannah, Georgia, on Oct. 25.

The LEAF scholarship is awarded to educators for their promotion and usage of lean accounting and processing techniques in the classroom and covers registration and travel costs to attend the Summit, which has long served the accounting community by exploring accounting’s role in measuring and motivating the lean enterprise.

During the past 10 years, Weller has required students to read a lean accounting novel and complete related assignments as part of cost accounting classes and is currently working with other departments in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business to expand coverage of lean processes.

Weller has more than 18 years of teaching experience and 20 years of private and public accounting experience. She joined Elon in 1998 and currently teaches Cost and Managerial Accounting. Prior to her teaching career, Weller was chief financial officer and treasurer of Weaver Investment Co. and held other accounting roles in the affiliated companies, such as Weaver Realty Co. and the Weaver Foundation. She was also a tax accountant with Deloitte Haskins & Sells and a staff accountant for Texfi Industries. She is a CPA and real estate broker.

Swanepoel has an extensive background in law and business, including serving as a business counselor at the Small Business & Technical Development Center at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Kenan Flagler Business School, directing large capital-intensive projects for and on behalf of the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa, and practicing law at one of the largest law firms in the City of Randburg, South Africa. He joined Elon in 2005 and teaches Managerial Accounting.