Spring 2023

It is my great honor and privilege to serve as the Accounting Department Head at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. I am grateful to my colleagues for their trust and support. My predecessor, Professor-Educator of Accounting Margaret Reed, PhD, CPA, CMA, served as department head with distinction from 2017 through last August, and provided steady leadership — especially during the pandemic period. Margaret, who plans to retire this coming August, is a skillful administrator, an inspiring teacher, an excellent mentor and a wonderful colleague. On behalf of the Accounting Department, I would like to congratulate Margaret on her distinguished career at UC and thank her for her impactful contributions to the Lindner Accounting Department.

The accounting profession is rapidly shifting, facing challenges on multiple fronts due to changes in accounting regulations and tax laws, automation of labor-intensive transactional work, and the launching of a new CPA exam in 2024. This disruptive time presents great opportunities for the Lindner Accounting Department.

We continue to focus on the success of our students by turning them into talented accounting professionals sought for their collaborative mindsets, innovative problem-solving capabilities, and analytical and critical-thinking skills. I’d like to highlight a few developments — with additional examples included in this newsletter — that further illustrate our mission.

• This past December, a report by a combined internal and external review team stated that the “excellent category” best describes both the MS Accounting and MS Tax programs. Many thanks to Associate Professor-Educators Molly Rogers, MBA, CPA (Director of MS Accounting) and Mark Bell, MBA, CPA (Director of MS Tax) for their hard work.

• Furthermore, a pair of our associate professors won a $10,000 award that will help integrate accounting analytics into our curriculum. In other faculty news, with several professors departing due to retirement and other reasons over the past three years, we have prioritized hiring strong faculty to fill these voids. I am pleased to announce that Jason Bangert (University of Tennessee, PwC alumnus) and Joe Lopez (University of Arkansas, Key Bank alumnus) will join as assistant professors of accounting in August.

• The Lindner Accounting Department also has a pair of exciting events coming up! In the interest of maintaining existing and creating new partnerships, on February 21, the Accounting Club and Beta Alpha Psi will host the Accounting Expo, which provides a platform for our students to connect with major Cincinnati-area CPA firms. Additionally, in conjunction with the Ohio Society of CPAs, the Accounting Department plans to welcome around 200 local high school students to campus for Accounting Career Day on May 2. This event will educate students on why accounting can be a promising and fulfilling career.

As always, we are very grateful for the support from our alumni, friends and corporate partners. Thank you!

Nan Zhou, PhD

Professor and Department Head, Norwood and Majorie Geis Chair of Accounting

Now in her fifth academic year at Lindner, UC women’s tennis player Maria Santilli is on the verge of earning her third degree from Lindner, all while balancing the duties required of a high-achieving collegiate student-athlete.

• As first mentioned above, Associate Professors Natalia Mintchik, PhD, CPA, CISA, and Linna Shi, CFA, won the $10,000 INQuires Award from the PwC Foundation, which will aid in the incorporation of accounting analytics into the curriculum. The Accounting Department gratefully acknowledges the advice and support from Joe Waller and Julie Peters, both at PwC.
• The New York Times and Forbes.com featured assistant professor Adam Olson, PhD, CPA and his two co-authors' paper, “Returns to Seeking Political Influence: Early Evidence from the COVID-19 Stimulus,” which studied lobbying, trade group and political action committee spending at more than 2,750 companies. Olson also delivered a presentation, “The Cost Structure of For-profit versus Non-profit hospitals,” at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health last summer.
• Professor Whitney Westrich, JD, has been appointed Director of International Business and Academic Director of the International Programs Office for a one-year term. Westrich’s duties include supporting academic needs of international partnerships and helping set international program strategies and goals.
• Associate Professor-Educator Aaron Pennington, JD, was appointed by Provost Valerio Ferme to a two-year term as a member of the Athletics Advisory Council. This NCAA-mandated council advises UC President Neville Pinto, PhD, and Director of Athletics John Cunningham on all matters relating to the intersection of athletics and academics.
• In August 2022, Professor John Changjiang Wang, PhD, was elected as the Treasurer of the International Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association for the academic year 2022-2023. 
• In December, Professor Nan Zhou, PhD, was appointed as an Editor for China Accounting and Finance Review, as well as an Associate Editor for Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation. Both appointments are for a three-year term from January 2023 to December 2025.
• Fourth-year doctoral students Lingting Jiang and Janean Rundo presented their joint paper titled “The Effect of Board Gender Culture on Audit Partner Selection and Audit Fee Resourcing: Females in Critical Mass” at the 2023 American Accounting Association Auditing Midyear meeting. This paper examines whether board of directors’ gender culture affects audit partner selection and audit partner resourcing in the United States.
• Third-year doctoral students Jaeik Min and Katherine Yu were admitted to the 2023 American Accounting Association Financial Accounting and Reporting Section (FARS) Doctoral Consortium. Min and Yu won a FARS Doctoral Consortium Travel Scholarship of $500 to attend the consortium and FARS Midyear Meeting. Yu also won a research grant of $3,000 from Lindner to support her joint research with Professor John Changjiang Wang.

Natalia Mintchik, PhD, CPA, CISA, CMA, associate professor of accounting, has published a joint paper with Erik Boyle and Rick Warne, former Lindner accounting professors, that will appear in Advances in Accounting in 2023.

The abstract of “When It Pays to be a Friend: Investigating Non-professional Investors’ Judgments Toward CSR Companies Following an Accounting Restatement” in part states that “prior literature suggests that engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) creates an insurance effect that shields companies from the negative consequences of corporate missteps.” 

Furthermore, Mintchik, Boyle and Warne “experimentally examine whether this protection extends to an accounting restatement and whether investors’ attributions of the underlying reasons for this restatement affect their judgments” through mediating effects of warmth and competence.

Mintchik, Boyle and Warne collected their data, wrote the first draft and presented the paper at multiple conferences, including at the European Accounting Association Annual Congress in Milan, Italy and at the American Accounting Association’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., when Boyle and Warne worked at Lindner.

Meet the Firms and Industry Night, the annual career fair hosted by Lindner Career Services and Beta Alpha Psi, hosted 54 employers and over 230 students in September.

Co-ops, internships and full-time positions were available at Meet the Firms, which welcomed four more employers in 2022 than 2019, the last pre-pandemic year for the event. Fittingly, employers were pleased to be on campus and sent positive feedback back to event organizers. Flynn & Company, Procter & Gamble and Wealthquest were among the companies to send in congratulations on a well-run event.

Mia Shaffer, BBA ’24, is a tax intern in the Cincinnati office of Brixey & Meyer. The accounting and finance major has served as a marketing intern for Bonefish Systems (Amherst, OH) and as an assurance and tax intern for Meaden & Moore (Cleveland). This upcoming summer, the Medina, Ohio native will be an FSO tax intern with Ernest & Young.

Before the Cincinnatus Scholar and Holmes Scholarship for Accounting recipient began her latest internship with Brixey & Meyer, Shaffer answered questions about Lindner, the accounting program and more.

Beta Alpha Psi 2022-23 Student Officers

• President: Jack Ernst
• Vice President: Amber Stull
• Treasurer: Jayasri Adari
• Reporter: Amber Stull

Accounting Club 2022-23 Student Officers

• President: Brady Leugers
• Treasurer: Cole Flesch
• External Vice President: Annie Robb
• Internal Vice President: Grace Lyness

Steven J. Bailey 
Director, Barnes Dennig & Co.

Nicole Bish 
Senior Tax Associate, MedPace

Robert Braun 
Senior Financial Analyst, 84.51

Alex Cook 
Senior Accountant, Cintas Corporation

Scott DeVenny 
Partner, Grant Thornton LLP

Kenneth J. Jenkins 
Partner, RSM

Roger T. Kramer 
Chief Financial Officer, Pioneer Cladding & Glazing Systems, LLC

Chris Michel 
Director of Accounting & Finance, Terrex Development & Construction

Rob Moeddel 
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Ocer, Fifth Third Bank

Tony Perazzo 
Partner, BKD, LLP

Sherri Richardson 
Partner/Owner, Richardson & Associates, LLC

Jay Rueger 
Tax Partner, Cassady Schiller

Sean Stewart 
Managing Director, Deloitte

Kelly Trame 
Advisory Internal Audit Associate, KPMG

Ron Vonderhaar 
Vice President, Global Corporate Tax at Lexmark

Paul Walker 
Partner, Ernst & Young

Joe Waller 
Partner, PwC

Thanks to those who donated to the Lindner Accounting Department Discretionary Fund in 2022. Your generous support helps keep our faculty and instructors up to date with the latest technology, training and credentials. This adds value to our program and to our students' experience.

• BKD CPAs & Advisors Foundation
• Blue & Co., LLC
• Brian M. Bell
  
• Scott R. Bezjak
• Earl R. Bowers
• Bonnie A. Brotzge
• Joseph A. Burnett
  
• James D. Cashell
• Daniel E. Clark
• Rocky Coppola
• Scott DeVenny
  
• Deloitte Foundation
• Ernst & Young Foundation
• Thomas D. Freeman
• Joan M. Gallina
  
• Paul D. Green
• Denis P. Hogya
• Richard L. Langmeier
• Trisha R. Kassner
  
• Scott J. Malof
• Brian J. Mischel
• Mark H. Montgomery
• Michael S. Palm
  
• Anthony M. Perazzo
• Pershing
• Margaret P. Reed
• Charles M. Rohr
  
• Daniel R. Slattery
• James H. Thomas
• Sandra M. Ulm
• John Changjiang Wang