PwC Grant to Support Career Mentoring

A grant from the global professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers is supporting a new career mentoring program designed to recruit and retain minority accounting students in St. Bonaventure University’s School of Business.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) representatives were on campus recently for a presentation to all accounting majors on career readiness strategies, and to recognize three freshmen who have been chosen as the program’s inaugural participants: Thomas Green of Rochester, Dominic Greene of the Bronx, and Michael Marin of East Elmhurst, N.Y.

The PwC grant was awarded to Dr. Susan Anders, professor of accounting at St. Bonaventure and chair of its Accounting Department, and Dr. Carol M. Fischer, professor of accounting and associate dean of business, to support their Accounting Scholars Program. The PricewaterhouseCoopers INQuiries grant is part of a larger effort by PwC to support diversity initiatives in accounting programs, added Fischer.

“The program is designed to enhance recruitment and retention of minority students,” said Anders. “This entails increasing minority applicants to the accounting program and providing support services to enable students to achieve success, academically and socially, at St. Bonaventure.”

The goal is to accept into the program each academic year three or four racial minority students who meet certain admission criteria and are deemed capable of completing St. Bonaventure’s New York State registered five-year accounting program. That program, to which students apply in their junior year, enables students to earn their bachelor of business administration and master of business administration degrees in five years, as well as qualify to become certified public accountants.

In addition to a financial scholarship, students in the new Accounting Scholars Program:

• are accepted into the Living/Learning Business Community residence halls, where they can more easily establish relationships with other business majors;

• participate in new career-ready programs through the University’s Career and Professional Readiness Center, with special programming designed to provide students with support services and exposure to business culture;

• are eligible for additional scholarship funds;

• are provided access to alumni mentors, particularly those who work with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The new scholarship program was not in place until after housing assignments for this semester were completed, so only one of the three recipients is in a Business Community residence hall. The other two, however, are in Leadership & Service learning communities, which “is also an excellent match for a business student at a Franciscan university,” said Fischer.

Pictured, from left, Brian McAllister, School of Business dean; accounting professor Dr. Susan Anders; accounting professor and associate dean of business Dr. Carol Fischer; Keith Stolzenburg, partner in the PwC’s Buffalo office; SBU students and program participants Dominic Greene, Michael Marin and Thomas Green; Sarah Leiby, PwC campus recruiter in Cleveland, Ohio; and Mark Bruno, PwC recruiting manager in Buffalo.