Robert J. Swieringa, a professor in the practice of accounting at the School of Management at Yale University and a former member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, has been named the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

The appointment was announced to the Johnson School faculty Feb. 27 by Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings. Subject to approval by the Cornell Board of Trustees, Swieringa will take office in July.

He will succeed Alan G. Merten, who left Cornell to become president of George Mason University. Thomas Dyckman has been acting dean since Merten's departure in July of 1996.

"Robert Swieringa's diverse background, which ranges from running a family-owned business to a respected career as an educator and scholar to membership on the Financial Accounting Standards Board, makes him especially well suited to lead the Johnson School," Rawlings said.

Swieringa, who will become the Johnson School's ninth dean, will oversee one of the nation's leading graduate management schools, with an annual budget of $21 million, an enrollment of 530 students and 45 full-time faculty members.

"The Johnson School is embarked on a quest to be, and to be recognized as, one of the world's great management schools," Swieringa said. "Becoming dean at this time gives me a wonderful opportunity to make a difference in helping to shape its efforts in that quest.

"With the tremendous support from alumni and friends and with a new facility being readied for the school, we have an opportunity to recommit ourselves to being the best and to rekindle relationships with people both inside and outside of Cornell," he continued.

Swieringa's appointment as dean marks his return to the Johnson School, where he served as a professor of accounting from 1974 to 1985. Prior to joining the Johnson School, he was an assistant professor of accounting at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, from 1968 to 1974.

He served as a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) from 1986 to 1996. The FASB is the key policy-making organization for accounting issues in the United States. The FASB has helped shape accounting principles and standards for all corporations and non-profit institutions, such as Cornell. Swieringa gained wide visibility and influence in the corporate community through his work with the FASB. He joined the Yale faculty in June 1996.

Swieringa has been an active member in numerous organizations, most notably the American Accounting Association, where he serves as president-elect of the financial accounting and reporting section.

Swieringa is the author of two accounting texts, Financial Accounting: An Introduction (Dryden Press, 1987), which he co-authored with Harold Bierman Jr., the Nicholas H. Noyes Professor of Business Administration at the Johnson School; and Cases in Financial Accounting (Third Edition, Irwin Press, 1989), which he co-authored with Dyckman, the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Accounting at the Johnson School.

Swieringa has written dozens of articles for a variety of publications, including the Journal of Accounting Research, Accounting Review, Accounting Horizons and Accounting, Organizations and Society. He sits on the editorial boards of Accounting Horizons and the Journal of Accounting Research.

He was the recipient of the Justice Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching for the 1975-76 Academic Year at Cornell, and he has received numerous awards and honors in recognition of his scholarly and professional work.

Before beginning his academic career, Swieringa managed a family-owned business, Hammond Organ Studios, in Iowa and Illinois.

He earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Augustana College in 1964, an MBA from the University of Denver in 1965 and a Ph.D. in accounting and complex organizations from the University of Illinois in 1969.

Swieringa currently resides in New Canaan, Conn.

The Johnson School Web site is located at www.gsm.cornell.edu.