Business and Industry | Lion VoicesSeptember 15, 2025

Empathy is Lee Stovall's Classroom Currency

Written By: Tina Dale

Lee Stovall doesn’t just teach numbers. 

When he steps into the classroom as a visiting instructor in the College of Business and Industry at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, he brings with him decades of service as a U.S. Treasury special agent, an IRS revenue agent, a public accountant, and an educator in both the Navy and the Treasury Department. 

He then blends that real-world experience with a special empathy to reach his students where they need him most. 

Whether he’s teaching managerial accounting, financial accounting, business courses or tax courses, Stovall likes to put himself in the shoes of his students. 

“I like to figure out what it is they need to know. We’ve all been students. I like to reach them and find out what they need,” Stovall said. 

He can also show students the importance of following the money no matter the lesson. 

“I did financial investigations, all kinds of cases, because no matter if it is prostitution or drugs or whatever, there is a money element to it,” Stovall said. “I’m teaching accounting. I can relate ‘follow the money’ to accounting. I can relate it to taxes. You can always relate it (follow the money).” 

Though his prior teaching environments—the Navy and Treasury Department—might have been a little more demanding of success, Stovall finds the need to teach in a compelling manner just as important. 

“I try to think, ‘What can I do to foster participation to draw students in?’ I try to teach in a way that gets them what they need,” Stovall said. 

That means factoring empathy into the equation, he said. 

“We like to say that students are not just a number here. You are a name at UAFS,” Stovall said. “These are human beings and not just numbers. These are students who need us.” 

Stovall holds a master’s degree in accounting from Missouri State University and is a certified public accountant. He started as an adjunct professor at UAFS in spring 2025 and was offered a full-time position beginning this fall.  

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