Accounting education in the post-COVID world: looking into the Mirror of Erised Timothy J. Fogarty Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA ABSTRACT Using the pause created by the COVID-19 pandemic, this essay expands upon the reflections offered by many accounting academics across the world. Many questions about where we find ourselves in our on-going efforts to educate, and what will be possible going forward, exist. This essay considers several dimensions including the technology we use, what we attempt to teach and the organizations that we use. Student and faculty behavior reside in the center of what will become of accounting education at this critical junction. Few answers are certainties. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 3 November 2020 Revised 11 November 2020 Accepted 16 November 2020 KEYWORDS COVID-19 pandemic; accounting faculty; accounting students; educational technology; remote learning Accounting education looks into the Mirror of Erised Accounting Education recently published a special issue in which accounting academics all over the world recounted their response to the pandemic, offering some ideas about lessons learned (Sangster et al., 2020). The forum should make us painfully aware that this was an unprecedented worldwide event that had to be met rapidly and decisively; and, it serves to remind us of the impressive scope of our community and the commonality of our purpose. The contributions to this collection were strictly limited in length by the editors in order to allow for so many countries to be represented in the issue. Each author’s effort to tell the often dramatic facts of their personal and institutional story greatly com- pressed the space available for lessons learned. The knowledge that this too shall pass necessitates a fuller focus on that which we can bring with us to the future. This essay tries to distill that which we can take away from what could be seen as a new world order. Although I do not tell my story, which would not be much different than many others, I do benefit from the lesson learned distilled from many others that I try to extend and embed in fresh soil. The result reflects a juxtaposition of loss and silver lining visible only after the urgency of the moment has passed. Technology pros and cons Without the technological tools that make remote education possible, higher education would have had to surrender in the face of the pandemic. With this technology, we are obligated to consider its role and its power. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group CONTACT Timothy J. Fogarty tjf@case.edu ACCOUNTING EDUCATION 2020, VOL. 29, NO. 6, 563–571 https://doi.org/10.1080/09639284.2020.1852945