New Student Recruitment Effort Enthusiastically Supported by Council.

• Position: Brief Article

Council Overwhelmingly Defeats Resolution to Kill XYZ, Votes to Intensify Education and Response Campaign

With much enthusiasm and excitement, members of Council at their spring meeting last month showed resounding support for a new five-year, $25 million recruitment initiative to help reverse the trend of students moving away from the CPA profession. A direct marketing program (as opposed to a national advertising campaign) in which state CPA societies will participate, this effort will concentrate on starting and continuing an interactive dialogue with "Generation Y" (ages 16-22, population: 60 million). It also will make extensive use of existing and new data that will allow tracking of the effectiveness of the campaign on a regular basis. (See article "Unique Direct Marketing Campaign Will Launch Later This Year to Boost Recruitment of New CPAs".)

On another major agenda item, spirited discussion, a thoughtful pro-con debate and presentation of resolutions by state CPA societies provided the backdrop for Council's discussions on whether to continue pursuing the proposed global credential ("XYZ"). These elements of the meeting were specifically designed to give members of Council and several states a forum to thoroughly present reasons for opposing XYZ as well as to provide adequate time for proponents to state their case.

A resolution offered by the New York State Society of CPAs that would have killed the XYZ initiative was voted down by a margin of almost 4 to 1 (41 for the resolution, 152 against). Instead, by an even larger margin, Council approved a resolution presented jointly by the California and Texas societies. Among other things, that resolution authorized continued development of the XYZ concept, approved mailing to members for their approval a bylaw amendment that would permit the AICPA to offer the XYZ credential in a separate entity it will form, and instructed AICPA management to send out the ballots after Council's Oct. meeting. Furthermore, the resolution requires the Institute working with state societies to conduct member information programs to obtain member comment on the proposal and to create a consistently informed constituency, to conduct a survey of members to ascertain their attitudes on the issue of non-CPAs being eligible to obtain the credential, and to allow Council an opportunity at its Oct. meeting to discuss member reaction, and, if necessary, reconsider the matter. Look to future issues of The CPA...