In fall 2023, BYU-Idaho brought on a new accounting faculty member to teach Accounting 201 and Accounting 403.
Ammon Butcher is a BYU-I alumnus who graduated in 2013. He was working in an accounting firm in Ohio when a friend suggested that he go into teaching.
Butcher had stayed in touch with many of his professors at BYU-I, and they informed him of the job opening in the Accounting Department.
"It's been great," Butcher said. "A lot of the faculty I already knew because I was a student here, and so they were once professors of mine. The professor that I replaced, his name is Kevin Packard, we got to overlap for a semester and so that was fun. At one point, we got to share an office, and that was even more fun. The faculty that I didn't know, the ones that came in after I left, I've gotten to know them, and I think they're great."
Butcher said that as a student, his goal was always to learn as much as possible, enabling him to find a meaningful job and become self-reliant. And now that he is a teacher, he wants to help his students have that vision for themselves.
"I (asked) my students a couple of weeks ago how many of you guys know what you want to do? How many of you have a plan? Some of them raised their hands and some of them didn't," Butcher said. "I had to plan from the very beginning, and I had to refine that plan over time. But some students, they just kind of coast until they figure out what they want to do ... They may put forth a great amount of effort to go after their dream, but I told them, 'whatever your dream is, having good grades is going to be really important, networking is going to be very important and just being the best version of yourself can be very important.'"
Butcher wants to apply the things he learned while in school to help the students he is currently teaching to achieve.
"I can play a role in their learning, but they play a bigger role, and I become not very useful to them if they don't come to see me when they're struggling," Butcher said.