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After more than four decades of setting the bar high for students and inspiring them to reach it, Associate Professor Alan Sumutka ’72 will retire from teaching this month. In tribute, a group of his former students, along with faculty and staff who have worked with Sumutka over the years, are establishing an endowed scholarship in his name.

Beginning this fall, the Graduate Accounting Endowed Scholarship in Honor of Alan Sumutka will be awarded to eligible students in ������ý����’s Master of Accountancy or Master of Business Administration program.

The announcement of the scholarship came during a celebration to honor Sumutka’s legacy at ������ý����, which was held May 16. The event began in the atrium of Sweigart Hall and was immediately followed by a program in the Yvonne Theater.

������ý���� Trustee Sherise D. Ritter ’84, who hosted, along with the Accounting Advisory Board, the legacy reception, recalls Sumutka’s class as being tough yet practical, with exam questions that seemed likely to have more than one correct answer.

"As it turns out, having been in public accounting for the last 35 years, I have found that there is often more than one right answer," says Ritter, now the managing director and practice leader of Mercadien’s nonprofit services group. "So thanks, Al, for bringing the real world to us sooner as opposed to later.”

Sumutka is humbled by the tributes and the scholarship. “It is just hitting me now how many kids I influenced that I never knew about,” he says. “To me, I just did my job, so it is very overwhelming.”

Over his 42-year tenure in the accounting department, Sumutka has taught many different courses, but his favorites, by far, were his undergraduate and graduate tax classes.

“Taxation is extremely creative,” Sumutka says. “In my opinion, it is one of the most creative things we teach in accounting.” He chuckles as he says that he spent his career teaching students how to learn the new tax laws and how to beat them — legally.

In 1981, shortly after Sumutka began teaching students about taxation, President Ronald Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act, a bill that significantly changed federal income tax policy. The Act, combined with another major tax reform act in 1986, cut marginal tax rates on high-income taxpayers from 70 percent to 28 percent and ushered in the era of Reaganomics.

Sumutka kept up with all the changes and operated his own CPA firm for 34 years, bringing real-world issues from his practice back into the classroom. “All the questions that came up with my clients helped me to develop practical lessons for what students were likely to experience," he says. "My courses were very real-world.”

In his undergraduate classes, he would present a series of 16 cases that took students on a journey from birth to death, allowing them to examine the tax implications of major life events. “I think the students learned a lot, not just in preparation for the CPA exam, but how this can truly affect them in life,” he says.

“Alumni frequently report they worked harder in Professor Sumutka's class than any other course and, in addition to tax, they learned just how much they could accomplish,” says Department of Accounting Chair Marge O’Reilly-Allen, Ph.D. “������ý���� is not going to be the same without Al. He has put his heart and soul into the ������ý���� accounting students he taught and mentored. The hard work, high standards and high expectations he set for his students he also set for himself.”

Sumutka, a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New Jersey Society of CPAs, has long been known for his dedication to his students. He is the recipient of four teaching awards, including the New Jersey Society of CPAs “Outstanding Educator Award” and the Lindback “Distinguished Teaching Award,” and is a member of the Accounting Advisory Council Hall of Fame.

As an undergraduate at ������ý����, he was a member of the baseball team and still holds his coaches, Tom Petroff and Sonny Pittaro, in the highest regard. “They were my role models,” he says. “They were always there to listen. They taught you about life.”

After graduating, Sumutka worked for the “Big 8” CPA firm, Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co., and pharmaceutical giant Merck and Co., Inc. He has authored or co-authored 41 articles and one book, and his articles have appeared in The Journal of Financial Planning, The Journal of Accountancy and The Tax Adviser, among others.

As for what’s next, Sumutka has some plans, but nothing is firm. He says he looks forward to spending more time with his wife, a retired elementary school music teacher, running along the beach at Belmar where year round he regularly runs anywhere from 12 to 18 miles a week, and taking some political science, homeland security and personal finance classes.

He knows one thing for sure — that he will miss ������ý����. “I don’t know if I am really ready to go,” he says. “I will miss the people here. I will miss the kids. This has rarely been a job. This is a love.”

Those wishing to make a gift to the Graduate Accounting Endowed Scholarship in Honor of Alan Sumutka can visit .