La Salle University Accounting Professor Bruce Leauby Receives Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching

Richard A. Nigro, Ph.D., Provost, and Bruce Leauby, Ph.D., Accounting professor, at the May 11 Commencement ceremony.

At a La Salle field hockey game a few years ago, a player waved to a man watching on the sidelines. “Is that your dad?” a teammate asked. “No,” she replied, “he’s my accounting professor!” It is not rare for Bruce A. Leauby, Ph.D., associate professor of accounting, to be on the sidelines cheering for his students at sporting events or any other extracurricular activities. “I tell the parents while their children are students at La Salle, I will treat them like my own,” said Leauby. 

For his dedication to teaching – both in inside and outside the classroom – Leauby was named the 2008 recipient of the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching at La Salle’s recent Commencement Ceremony.  

“I was in total shock,” said Leauby when he learned of the award. “It means a lot to me to be recognized for something that I love to do.”  

Leauby came to La Salle in 1989, teaching courses such as taxation, auditing, financial accounting, and healthcare finance. To help his students gain real-world experience, Leauby often takes his classes to locations around Philadelphia such as the Italian Market. “Afterwards, the students are assigned a project to create a brief business plan for a business they would like to operate at the Italian Market,” said Leauby. 

For the past eight years, Leauby has also taught a linked course that combines one of his financial accounting classes with an English composition class, providing a cross-disciplinary experience. In their English course, the students will read the book, Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, who wrote the book about his assent of Mount Everest. A joint project between courses has the students create a proposed travel plan for climbing Mount Everest including supporting financial statements. “You would never think of connecting accounting with English composition, but it works out extremely well. The students receive a great experience and come to appreciate the communication theme connecting both courses,” said Leauby. 

With the generosity of the Christian and Mary Lindback Foundation, La Salle University has been bestowing the Distinguished Teaching Award since 1961. Leauby now joins the long list of La Salle faculty to be recognized for their excellence in teaching. La Salle’s recipient is selected by a committee of students, faculty, and administrative representatives who base their decision on nominations solicited from the University’s full-time faculty, and both undergraduate and graduate students. 

Leauby’s nomination for the Lindback Award included accolades such as, “the personification of the Lasallian tradition…, and, is always prepared, very innovative, and very enthusiastic in class.” 

Leauby was also recently honored with La Salle’s Beta Gamma Sigma Professor of the Year Award, voted on by La Salle’s top business students inducted into the honor society over the past two years. He received this award at the spring induction ceremony for Beta Gamma Sigma, the international business honor society serving business programs accredited by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. 

Leauby earned his doctoral degree in accounting from Drexel University. He earned his master’s in business administration from Pennsylvania State University and his bachelor’s degree from Bloomsburg University. Leauby is a Certified Public Accountant, a Certified Management Accountant, and a Certified Fraud Examiner. He resides in Fort Washington, Pa. with his wife, Joan. His son Jeffrey, is a 2005 graduate of La Salle.