Faculty Voices: Dr. Randall Stone

Written By: Ian Silvester

Since the fall of 2020, Dr. Randall Stone has called the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith his professional home. However, Fort Smith has always been home. Stone is an avid genealogist, tracing his family back six generations – all, like Stone, born and raised in Fort Smith.
 
After briefly leaving Fort Smith to attend Arkansas Tech University in 2001, Stone came home for a crucial vote that changed his education trajectory and the education of thousands of future students.
 
“I was 18 … we were undergoing the “Our University Program,” moving Westark College into the U of A System,” Stone recalled. “That was my first opportunity to vote in that election. It moved our property tax millage to a sales tax and merged Westark into the U of A System to become UAFS.”
 
After being part of the vote to establish UAFS, Stone didn’t waste any time returning to his hometown to become a Lion. He transferred at the start of the second semester of his first year and graduated from the UAFS accounting program – one of the first business programs to be offered.
 
Stone spent eight years taking every finance and accounting class he could at UAFS before graduating in 2009 with 146 college credit hours, just shy of the 150 he needed to sit for the Arkansas Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam.
 
But, taking it in stride, Stone now uses that time as an example to his current students as they work towards a degree. “I tell my students all the time that no one looks at how long it took you to accomplish the goal that you set out to meet. I’m very proud I’ve got two pieces of paper that say I went here: an associate degree and a Bachelor of Science degree.”
 
Still short four credit hours of being able to take the Arkansas CPA exam and nearly a decade into his bachelor studies, Stone reached out to his mentor and then professor, Dr. Margaret Tanner, now associate Provost for academic affairs. She encouraged Stone to pursue a graduate course in education and was accepted at the University of Central Arkansas.
 
He moved back to Fort Smith in 2010 after completing a year-long Master of Accountancy program at UCA, passed his CPA exam, and began working for a regional CPA firm. Then Tanner had an opening.
 
“She was looking for someone to teach an evening class section (part-time) of Principles of Financial Accounting, the first introduction to accounting that students have in the College of Business. So, I started as an adjunct instructor in the fall of 2011,” he said. “I did that for a semester, and I found that I enjoyed my second part-time job so much more than I did my day job.”
 
Following his epiphany, Stone left the corporate world and pursued teaching full-time.
 
Stone earned his Ph.D. from Northcentral University in California in 2019. While working on his degree, he taught accounting at Rose State College in Midwest City, OK, East Central University in Ada, OK, and as a resident master at UCA. All of this prepared him for his homecoming – a full circle moment – to UAFS as an assistant professor of accounting.
 
Soon to begin his fourth academic year at UAFS, Stone has started to see his students graduate and return to UAFS in search of future coworkers during the fall Meet the Firms career fair, hosted by Beta Alpha Psi. An event he calls his favorite of the year.
 
But it’s not just seeing the connections made outside the classroom that gives him joy as a professor.
 
“I have a stack of business cards with former students’ names that now have a comma CPA after their name. The last message I send out through Blackboard is, ‘don’t forget to send me your new business card.’ Once you’re a CPA, to me, that’s the mark of a professional. I love that collection and adding to it.”
 
Stone’s passion for teaching others resulted in being honored with the 2022 UAFS Lori Norin Faculty Appreciation Award, selected by the Student Government Association from nominations sent in by students. Additionally, he has twice been nominated for the Oklahoma Society of CPAs Outstanding Accounting Educator Award – most recently this past year.
 
Stone likes to take things easy when he isn’t busy on campus. He returns to his family roots through gardening, flexing his green thumb, six generations of farmers deep. Stone and his wife love to travel with their camper during the summer, stopping at tourist must-sees, like Mount Airy, North Carolina, where the fictional town Mayberry from “The Andy Griffith Show” was based.

Dr. Randall Stone will be presented with the Oklahoma Society of CPAs Outstanding Accounting Educator Award on August 24, 2023, at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in Oklahoma City, OK.

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