LOUISE “LOU” BURNEY has been named the 2025 Outstanding Educator and was honored during the Business Meeting at the Annual Convention at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Destin on Saturday, June 21. The award recognizes a full-time accounting instructor who has made significant contributions to their students, their college/university, and the profession. She exemplifies the criteria, and her impact will serve the careers of her students and the profession for many years to come.

Lou received her baccalaureate degree from The University of Mississippi with a major in accounting in 1979 and earned a Master of Accountancy degree from Millsaps College in 1996. She has many years of professional accounting experience, including 8 years in public accounting with Arthur Anderson and KPMG. Lou then spent the next 27 years in a variety of roles in the accounting/finance function at Millsaps College, with the last eleven years leading that unit as Vice President - Finance. During this time, she developed a love for teaching accounting. She was an adjunct professor at Millsaps from 1996 through 2014 where she taught Principles of Accounting I, Principles of Accounting II, Auditing, and Survey of Accounting.

Lou joined the Patterson School of Accountancy faculty at The University of Mississippi in 2014. Over the last few years, her teaching schedule has included a total of 13 classes per year. This includes five sections of ACCY 201 Principles of Accounting I in the Fall semester, and five sections of ACCY 202 Principles of Accounting II in the Spring semester. She also teaches three intersession/summer sections each year. Across these 13 classes, Lou currently teaches approximately 1,000 accounting principles students per year with an average enrollment in her classes of 85--a challenging responsibility. Lou’s five sections each semester are typically ranked among the top 10 sections in the Patterson School every semester in terms of overall performance.
Having taught over 8,000 students (not including intersession and summer terms) in just the last 10 years alone and with more than 6,000 of these students completing their end-of-semester teaching evaluation, 69% rated her as SUPERIOR and the remaining 31% as EXCELLENT. The weighted average overall performance measure is 4.69 out of 5 possible points.

As a result of her outstanding teaching performance, Lou was named one of two recipients of the 2019 Patterson School Outstanding Teacher Award in the first year that she was eligible. Faculty who win this award are ineligible for the following three years. Not surprisingly, once Lou became eligible again, she won the award in 2023. In addition, during April 2023 Lou was named the inaugural recipient of the university-wide St. Amand Outstanding Teacher Award. The award is given to only one faculty member across the university each year with several hundred who are eligible.
Lou has been described by students as the “best teacher by far that I have ever had and will always remember,” “amazing,” and “a professor who loves teaching, will get to know you and will do everything in her power to help you succeed.” Word on campus among students is “don’t take anyone else for this class.”

The most impactful teaching characteristic that Lou possesses is her ability to attract students to the accounting major and ultimately to the profession. A large number of the students that studied under her indicate to their Intermediate Accounting teacher that they switched to a major in accounting because of Lou. Ole Miss estimates 40 to 50 students have been impacted by her doing so at this point. This is why it is important to have the best instructors for Principles to insure the stability of the pipeline and the profession.

Please join us in honoring Louise Burney as the 2025 MSCPA Outstanding Educator Award recipient.