KPMG Peat Marwick Associate Professor in Professional Accounting Ann Backof was recently selected to receive a UVA All-University Teaching Award, one of the University’s highest honors for instructional excellence.
The annual award recognizes faculty who have demonstrated sustained, profound impact on student learning. For Backof, that impact spans nearly every level of McIntire’s Accounting curriculum, from large introductory sections to a graduate course she designed from scratch, along with a University-wide program she helped establish.
“Winning this award is incredibly meaningful to me because teaching is the most rewarding part of my work,” Backof says. “It’s where I have the opportunity to make a lasting difference, connecting with students, challenging them, and supporting their development at pivotal moments in their lives.”
Accounting Area Coordinator Adam Koch, who nominated Backof for the award alongside Interim Dean Amanda Cowen, says the recognition reflects outstanding qualities that have defined her work from the beginning.
“She combines academic rigor with real-world relevance, deep care for students, and a reflective approach to teaching,” Koch notes. “Across introductory, intermediate, and graduate courses, she has had a sustained impact on students’ understanding of accounting and their confidence applying it in real business settings.”
Backof’s primary teaching responsibilities extend across McIntire’s undergraduate and graduate programs. She has taught Intermediate Accounting I, one of the more demanding courses in McIntire’s third-year curriculum. Backof played a central role in redesigning how the course is taught, helping students engage more deeply with the material while preserving its technical rigor. Her teaching prowess has been reflected in instructor ratings for the course that are well above McIntire faculty averages. Additionally, her work on the course did not stop with her own sections. Koch notes that her willingness to share materials, mentor junior instructors, and collaborate on course design has raised the standard of instruction across the entire teaching team.
“She is welcoming, responsive, and generous with her time,” Koch says. “Colleagues report that they have become better teachers as a result of that collaboration.”
At the graduate level, Backof designed and launched Advanced Auditing and Applied Data Analytics, a course built around how professionals use data to ask sharper questions, evaluate evidence, and communicate conclusions. The course emphasizes hands-on learning and real-world case analysis, and its development drew external support from a grant from PwC.
Beyond her individual courses, Backof serves as the inaugural Program Director of McIntire’s General Business Minor, a program designed to open core business education to students across Grounds regardless of their major area of study. Backof says the role has been particularly significant for her because the minor “has created new pathways for students across UVA to engage with business education, many of whom might not have had that opportunity otherwise. It’s been especially rewarding to see how students use that access to shape their own paths to success.”
Koch describes that work as a significant institutional contribution, noting that Backof has coordinated across faculty, aligned courses, and built the structure that supports the program’s reach well beyond the Commerce School.
Looking back on her career at McIntire thus far, Backof says the moments that stay with her are not always the most visible ones.
“What resonates most are the moments when students begin to see themselves differently, when they gain confidence, take intellectual risks, and realize they can navigate complex problems on their own,” she says. “Those shifts are often subtle, but they are lasting. It’s not just about what students learn in a course, but how they carry that forward into their future decisions and experiences.”
That philosophy of creating environments where students feel both challenged and supported is what Koch believes makes Backof invaluable not just as an instructor, but as a colleague and a model for others.
“She is so effective in the classroom because she makes complex material understandable and consistently connects technical content to real business decisions,” he says. “She creates an environment where students can work through challenging material and build confidence.”
Backof says the award is both an honor and a reminder of the work that remains as she and her colleagues put the finishing touches on the new Accounting course to be offered as part of the Integrated Core.
“To be recognized in this way is both meaningful and a reminder of the responsibility I feel to show up fully for my students every day.”
