Professor Romi-Lee Sevel – an assistant professor, teaching stream, in the accounting area of York University’s School of Administrative Studies in the Faculty of Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS) – has a goal: to bring the workplace into her classroom, with all the stress and pressure that entails.
The business and accounting world can be intensive, and through her unique teaching approach, Sevel wants to ensure her students are equipped with the necessary experience to face the sector’s realities, not just in theory but also in practice.
“I’m constantly trying to find ways to make it as real as possible,” says Sevel. “These types of skills are best developed when practised in a hands-on way.”
Sevel tries to make every class different, often experimenting with different types of simulations. Sometimes it’s a written case study where students are presented with the details of a business and asked to make recommendations. Sometimes, it’s role-playing. “You guys are the board, and I am the CEO, and I'm coming into your board meeting and presenting you with problems,” Sevel will tell students
To simulate real-world business situations, Sevel will sometimes let students know ahead of time what to expect for the day. Other times, she will also make them work quickly. "They’ll be begging me, ‘I need more time.’ And I'll say, ‘No, the meeting's starting. I know you need more time, but my schedule has changed. We’ve got to push up the meeting by an hour and a half. You’ve just got to be ready.’”
And her students are thriving in that environment. Among them was Uyen Doan, a former student who graduated in December 2022 and is reaping the benefits of Sevel’s teaching style. In her current job at an auditing firm, Doan was recently asked to present her work to senior managers in the company. “I'm in my second year at the firm, so they would expect that I would be nervous and don't actually know what I'm talking about. But at the end of the meeting, the senior manager came to me and he told me, ‘You don't seem nervous at all,’” she recalls. "The experience in Professor Sevel’s class really helped me with that.”
One of the exercises Doan fondly remembers from the class is the competitions. Industry professionals come to class – Sevel leverages her network to invite chartered professional accountants – and judge the students’ presentations of case studies. Doan says preparing for those competitions taught her the value of teamwork, time management and presentation skills.
In one case, Doan’s group was given the details of a vineyard that was considering buying land to grow more grapes. The team recommended not expanding and instead concentrating on increasing productivity. The judges did not agree, but Doan’s team presented their analysis as to why their recommendation was best for the company, and they scored highest in the competition.
Another former student, Zeyad Slaiwa, credits Sevel’s focus on having students make presentations with helping develop his skills and land a job as an auditor.
“When it comes to accounting majors, a lot of us are introverted,” he says. "Speaking to a large audience, that is hard.…The presentations in Professor Sevel’s class really helped.”
Slaiwa remembers one of his case studies involving an auditing firm checking the inventory of a livestock company. To get an accurate count, Slaiwa’s team had to learn to use an app called Count Things to fly drones over a herd of cattle.
Another critical element of Sevel’s pedagogical plan is having students use new technology. She emphasizes the use of artificial intelligence and robotic process automation to make students more marketable.
Sevel is also continuing to innovate by working on a new simulation that will make use of visual storytelling. “I will be creating an interactive, real-time simulation aimed at skill development, including effective communication, multitasking, stress management, independent learning and creative problem solving,” she says, adding that employers say junior employees often lack those skills. The new simulation will include role-playing, instructor intervention, video, voice notes, instant messages and email, as well as both individual and group work components.
An LA&PS grant allowed her to complete 13 hours of interviews with industry professionals to help guide the development of the simulation.
The spectrum of Sevel's educational experiences all boils down to her desire to see her students succeed in their careers.
“My goal is for students to more easily connect classroom learning with work experience, so they don’t look back at undergrad and think, ‘Wow, my undergrad didn’t prepare me at all for employment,’” she says. “ I also want to help students build confidence for entering the workforce. From the employer side, if our students are more job-ready, it helps build York U’s business program reputation.”
With files from Julie Carl