Passing Nick Cicone’s Intermediate Accounting I class is tough, an accomplishment to be proud of – and that’s what he wants.

“I’m a hard professor,” he acknowledges. “I have high standards. I want my students to succeed and am going to challenge them. It’s for their own betterment, so they can do well in what they’re going to be doing in life once they leave the University.”

Cicone has been a member of the Adkerson School of Accountancy faculty since 2022, when he came on board as a visiting professor.

“I turned down a tenure track offer at a school in Pennsylvania for the visiting position at Mississippi State because I thought it was a better opportunity,” he shares. “MSU is an R1 institution, and the research aligned more with my interests. The faculty were great during the interview. Plus it’s an SEC school, and it’s in the southeast, closer to my family in Florida.”

Now a tenure track faculty member, Cicone is an assistant professor and holds the Larry Bell Endowed Fellowship. He has a PhD in business from the University of Florida and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting from the University of South Florida.

He enjoys teaching Intermediate I, which is the first core class for accounting majors.

“It’s where students realize that they love accounting or that they are not going to do accounting – so it does a lot of filtering,” he says. “A lot of students get overwhelmed by the amount of information, and for many it’s also the first time they have to work really hard. But if they make it through that class, generally, they’re not going to fail out of the accounting program in a later class where the content may be more difficult because by then they’re used to the rigor of the program.”

Because Cicone wants his students to succeed, he works with his graduate assistant (GA) to offer peer assisted learning sessions. These GA-led sessions give students more time with exam review packets and class material than is available during class. Those who attend typically perform ten to fifteen points higher on exams than those who don’t. The number of students who fail, drop or withdraw from the course has declined significantly as well.

Cicone also gets the chance to recruit students into accounting. Each spring, he teaches a Principles of Financial Accounting section, required of all business majors.

“That’s where you can convert some students into accounting majors,” he notes. “I worked with an honors undergraduate on her thesis, and we looked at why students who come in as non-accounting majors choose accounting. One of our key findings was that the Principles professor is a primary driver to becoming an accounting major.”

Cicone’s own research focus is in the audit archival area. He is currently looking at the quarterly reporting process and the auditor’s role in it. Because procedures used for quarterly reports are usually more limited in scope than the full audits performed for annual reports, he studies whether auditors’ reviews improve interim financial statements.

Over the summer, he presented a paper on the topic at the Journal of International Accounting Research Conference in South Korea. Through peers from Asia, Europe, the Pacific Rim and the United States, he gleaned perspective from countries where auditor reviews are mandatory and others where they are voluntary. His and his co-authors’ research is also being presented in September at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets in Washington, DC. A switch from quarterly to semi-annual mandatory reporting is under consideration in the United States, so their work is particularly relevant here.

“I enjoy working on questions that I’m interested in and finding the answers to those questions,” he says. “I enjoy presenting that research and hearing critiques and concerns and trying to anticipate them. I love the back-and-forth discussions that happen.”

While he is passionate about pursuing his research, it is his investment in students that brings the greater satisfaction.

“It’s gratifying to hear from former students when they’re doing well in their careers that you had an impact on them – and to see their growth while they’re here, too. Someone may fail initially then come back and get an A or B, having done some introspection and taken responsibility for doing his or her part as a student rather than blaming the toughness of the class,” he says. “That’s the real rewarding part of this job – teaching students.”