The business department welcomed new faculty members, Pil Joon Kim and Naomi Christensen, this fall. Kim will serve as the Assistant Professor of Business Administration and Christensen as Instructor of Accounting. Christensen was a member of the 2008 Houghton class. She graduated as a Business and Accounting major and was involved in track and field. Many of the current business professors also taught her when she was a student at Houghton. As a student, Christensen enjoyed how “down to earth” her professors were and how they made studying business practical and applicable to daily life. She hopes to implement some of these same principles as she gives her students hands on learning that will prepare them for experiences in the field of accounting.
Before returning to Houghton as a faculty member, Christensen worked at a certified public accountant firm for three years. Later, she applied her work experience to a job with The Seed Company, a Wycliffe Bible Translators affiliated program. She worked out of Texas assisting in translation projects by creating budgets, business plans, and assessing partners overseas. As a field business analyst, she has traveled with The Seed Company to Nigeria, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Christensen mentioned the importance of learning to speak the language of business and to present it with integrity. She hopes that this semester will provide her with opportunities to explore what it looks like to integrate ethics and accounting. This fall, Christensen is teaching Financial Accounting and Auditing.
Kim agrees, “It is important to execute ethical norms when performing financial transactions.” Moreover, Kim believes that finance should be a field that Christians study in order to encourage the financial system to serve its intended purpose. Kim mentioned that the focus on financial studies should be “learning ways to mitigate unfair financial damages caused by conventional financial systems, rather than solely to gain wealth.” As an advocate for justice in the financial world, Kim reinforces Houghton’s goal to develop Christian leaders in many different fields of study. Before coming to Houghton this year, Kim taught at a large public university and a smaller private university. He expressed that he is looking forward to working at Houghton because a smaller scale school encourages individual attention for each student. Before teaching, Kim was a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois. During his masters and doctoral programs, Kim studied and researched many different subjects including corporate finance, fixed income, investment, and asset pricing, to name a few. Currently, he hopes to expand his research in financial markets. This includes topics such as security, bond, foreign currency, derivatives, and financial interest. Kim stated, “It is my duty as a financial professional to teach students to stay within the system and directly engage in the management of wealth which God has entrusted to them in a way that is honoring to him.” This fall, Kim is teaching Business Communication, Entrepreneurship, Financial Management, and Security Analysis & Portfolio Management.