J. Hugh Jackson

Who was J. Hugh Jackson?

J. Hugh Jackson was born on a farm in Warren County, Iowa. He received the Bachelor

of Arts degree from Simpson College in 1912, the Master of Business Administration with

Distinction from Harvard University in 1920 and two honorary degrees from Simpson College,

Doctor of Laws in 1930 and Doctor of Business Administration in 1955. He became a Certified

Public Accountant in Wisconsin in 1919 and later was certified for both Massachusetts and

California. His first college teaching post was at the University of Oregon, 1916-17. From

1918-19 he served as assistant professor of accounting at the University of Minnesota. On

completion of his Master's degree in business he was made assistant professor of accounting at

the Harvard Graduate School of Business in 1923 and was advanced to full professor there at the

age of 32. During his time at Harvard, and until 1930 at Stanford, he was associated with the

nationally known public accounting firm of Price Waterhouse & Co. In 1923 he served as a

lecturer in auditing at New York University and held the same post at the University of Chicago

in the summer of 1923.

In 1926, Dean Jackson joined the staff of Stanford's new Graduate School of Business as

professor of accounting and in 1931 became its second dean, a post which he held for twenty-

five years until his retirement in 1956. He served as acting comptroller at Stanford from 1937 to

1940 in addition to heading the Business School. During his administration, the Stanford

Graduate School of Business Administration attained national stature and a high degree of

respect in the business community. In the course of his long years of service, his sympathetic

understanding and helpfulness had a lasting influence upon countless numbers of students.

Himself an extraordinarily successful teacher, he insisted on the highest standards of teaching

performance from his faculty.