The embattled Andersen accounting firm today will seek to reassure accounting professors on Mount Oread and campuses nationwide that the company remains a good place for their students to work.

During a 1 p.m. conference call with professors, Andersen CEO Joseph Berardino and managing partner Terry Hatchett will answer questions about their firm’s role as Enron auditors.

Andersen partners already have traveled to Lawrence for breakfast with Kansas University professors. About 10 KU students are slated to move into Andersen jobs this fall.

“We well understand the position we’re in,” said Grover Wray, managing partner for people in Andersen’s North American business. “We are being very proactive in addressing the questions people have.”

They’re making the right move, considering the questions swirling in students’ minds about the future of the firm, said Bill Fuerst, KU’s dean of business.

“They’re trying to right the ship,” Fuerst said.

Andersen signed off on the questionable financial transactions that led to the energy giant’s collapse into the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in savings were lost.

Ironically, a central figure in the case fired Andersen partner David Duncan was a student in an information systems class that Fuerst taught during the early 1980s at Texas A&M University.

The Big Five accounting firms fill a large number of entry-level jobs each year with graduates from KU and other universities. Offers typically are made in the fall for employment a year later.

One KU student, for example, is scheduled to start work at Andersen’s Houston office this fall.

“She’s been assured that the position is solid,” said Jim Heintz, director of accounting and information systems at the business school. “This is very smart on their part. It’s important for them to let these students know that these positions are not going away.”

Wray, the Andersen managing partner, said that college seniors who accepted full-time jobs last fall still were “standing by us” and that the firm expected to be able to hire the juniors it needs as summer interns.

Journal-World wire services contributed to this story