Christine Nolder will embark on a new career path, as she joins the Suffolk University Sawyer Business School’s Accounting faculty, teaching classes in Auditing and Assurance Services.

Nolder, who earned a BS in accounting, an MBA with a Management concentration, and a PhD from Bentley University, brings years of professional experience in accounting and auditing.

She began her career as an accountant at Tofias, Fleishman, & Shapiro, where she spent three years performing audits, reviews, and compilations for clients in various industries. She later went on to work as a controller for WorldTravel Partners and then Politzer & Haney.

Throughout her career, Nolder always expressed an interest in the training and development aspects of the field. “When I was both an auditor and a controller, I gravitated toward opportunities in the internal training and development departments,” she said. “Consequently, I wanted to transition to a new career that offered more opportunities in teaching.”

In 2002, Nolder started teaching full time at Bentley University. In 2004, she served as the coordinator for the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass.

Nolder is excited to teach at Suffolk. “I chose Suffolk because of its diverse faculty and the importance they place on both teaching and research,” she said.

“I am looking forward to collaborating with other accounting researchers interested in finding solutions to assist practicing accountants and auditors with some of their daily challenges, and to engaging in interesting discussions with students from such diverse backgrounds to shed light on the challenges in the current audit environment,” she said.

When she begins teaching this fall, Nolder hopes to provide Business School students with a thorough and comprehensive understanding of the auditing field. “I hope I can help students develop an appreciation for the difficulties faced by auditors in today’s Post-Sarbanes-Oxley environment,” she said.

“I hope the students in my class gain an appreciation of the auditors’ role in business and society, including their ethical and legal responsibilities to their various stakeholders,” she added. 
Auditors are faced with competing pressures from clients, regulators, and other stakeholders. “I hope to convey the challenges associated with these pressures and instill the importance of planning and performing the audit with the priority of protecting the investing public. Auditors must conduct the audit with the utmost integrity and objectivity,” she said.

Nolder also hopes to teach students the importance of professional skepticism and judgment in all aspects of their careers. She explained that recent audit failures have tarnished the image of auditors, and she hopes that future auditors continue to re-establish the integrity of the profession.