Step Into Stephen Zeff's Office

Renowned accounting professor Stephen Zeff recently celebrated his 90th birthday, but he isn’t slowing down. Earlier this year, he gave two major international lectures in Finland and England. His youthful energy comes from teaching, he says. “If you stop moving, learning and growing, your students are going to leave you behind.”

Zeff’s office is a tight but magical space, especially if you love books and enjoy talking about history and travel. His walls are lined with texts, awards and personal effects, and his space includes not just one – but two – overflow areas in McNair Hall that house his one-of-a-kind collection of accounting materials dating to the early 1900s.

We recently spoke with Zeff about some of the objects in his office that mean the most to him:

1. A custom-made bobblehead doll resembles the professor. His department colleagues gifted it to him in 2011 during a dinner in Denver to commemorate his 50th year as an academic. The dinner was attended by more than 50 accounting faculty colleagues from around the world, at the time of the annual meeting of the American Accounting Association.
2. A crystal clock sits on the shelf where he keeps the books he’s written or edited — a total of 32 during his storied career — from biographies of pioneer accountants to histories of accounting as a discipline.
3. Zeff’s three honorary doctorates line the wall behind his desk — from universities in Canada, Finland and Spain. An avid internationalist, Zeff has given countless lectures (including in Spanish!) and held numerous visiting appointments around the world.
4. A small black-and-white photo of his family was taken in the 1940s. The photograph signifies the things that matter most to Zeff: family, history, travel and connecting with people.

Among fellow accounting historians, Zeff has a reputation as someone who treasures old books. It’s a reputation he enjoys. His two overflow spaces are tucked away in the Business Information Center (BIC), and his archive is likely the only of its kind. Many of the books and journals here have not been digitized and constitute the only remaining copies. Zeff’s textual rescues have proven essential to dozens of researchers in the field.

Here’s to many more years!