Dr. Elizabeth Johnson earned her undergraduate degree in mathematics from the University of Northern Colorado; her business administration degree from the University of California, Riverside; and her masters of accountancy from the University of Colorado, Denver. After a successful 13-year career in public accounting working with the Big Four firms, she enrolled full time at Louisiana State University, earning her doctorate with the goal of teaching accounting at the university level.

In addition to her many years of higher education and her 13-year career, Dr. Johnson is also a retired Air Force major with 20 years of service to our country. In her search for the perfect school at which to teach, she turned to Southwest Florida. “I was looking for a good school in a good community, and I wanted a non-tenured position,” she said. The result: Dr. Johnson joined FGCU in 2015.

“I think the school is fantastic,” she said. “It’s focused on students getting an education, not pushing them through just to support a four-year graduation statistic. Professors are very much here for the student. And in doing that, they support local and regional business leaders who are looking to FGCU to recruit much-needed accountants.”

Dr. Johnson identified the strengths of FGCU’s accounting program as “the wide variety of different accounting courses that allows students to sit for the CPA exam. Some schools don’t provide enough variety unless students take master’s courses at the same time. At FGCU, we make sure students take all the credits they need to sit for the exam.”

Internships are a major key to success. “We highly recommend that students participate in an internship during their junior year,” she said. “We have an official mentoring program where we try to match students with local employers depending on interests and need.” Dr. Johnson estimates that FGCU’s accountancy program has a close to 99 percent hiring percentage. “Students know they have a job when they graduate.”