Meet a Colleague: Elizabeth Oliver Elizabeth Oliver is the associate dean of the Williams School and the Lewis Whitaker Adams Professor of Accounting.

W&L News Office
October 29, 2025

Q. How long have you worked at W&L?
I arrived at W&L in the Fall of 1991, so I’ve been here for 34 years.

Q. What courses are you teaching this term?
I am not teaching, but I am organizing the London Internship Program for Summer 2026. I will teach the 1-credit prep class for it in the Winter and teach the Internship class, as well as run the program in the summer.

Q. What is your favorite course to teach, and why?
There are so many! I love running the London Internship Program because participating in it changes many students’ lives. It is so gratifying to see them grow and mature. However, I found that to be true with my Spring Term class as well as my accounting classes. It is what makes teaching at W&L so rewarding — the students keep growing.

Q. What do you like most about working at W&L?
The people are the most important part of working at W&L  — the students, the faculty and the staff.  We get to come to work every day and work with intelligent, friendly, supportive and incredibly nice people. It is amazing!

Q. Where is your favorite location on the W&L campus?
That is a trick question for me at this point because it has to be the new Williams School building! The Williams School team, the architects, facilities colleagues and the builders worked together to create such a wonderful new space.

Q. What advice do you have for students?
Explore as much as you can! You want to find out what excites you.

Q. What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?
I love to bake and cook. I learned to make macarons during the pandemic.

Q. Where did you grow up?
Corpus Christi, Texas

Q. What is the most adventurous thing that you have ever done?
It may be getting in a dugout boat in Belize when Rob Straughan and I took students for a W&L Student Consulting project, or it may have been going down the Rio Negro in Brazil.

Q. What book are you reading now?
I just finished “The Good Lord Bird” by James McBride and I am rereading “The Great Gatsby” for the first-year reading. I need to start on something else.

Q. What music are you listening to these days?
I sing with the Rockbridge Chorus, so I listen to and sing the music we are going to perform.

Q. Tell us something most people don’t know about you.
I started out as an English major and wrote my master’s thesis on Jane Austen. I find her books restorative. I took my first accounting class through continuing education at the University of Virginia and absolutely loved it. It taught me that you never know where life will take you.