It was another banner semester for the Accounting and Finance Department. Our students were successful in the classroom, in securing internship and job offers, and in their outside activities.

Highlighting our list of high achieving students was Durran Thompson. Durran was chosen by his peers as the Saint John’s student commencement speaker, received the Saint John’s Man of Extraordinary Service Award, and starred in the spring musical performance of Godspell. After graduation, Durran will begin working as an Enterprise Risk consultant for Deloitte.

After years of anticipation, a standalone finance major was approved by the faculty and boards—previously students interested in finance would major in accounting with a concentration in finance. Students will now be able to major in Finance and choose from concentrations in Business Finance, Financial Economics, and Mathematical Finance.

At our spring scholarship ceremony, $114,400 in scholarships were given to 36 students. A highlight was the establishment of the Tom Roos Scholarship—juniors Lauren Dohmen and Nate Loxtercamp were the first-ever recipients of this scholarship. Tom, a 1995 graduate of Saint John’s and the Chief Accounting Officer of UnitedHealth Group, also donated $50,000 to the department to transform technology in one of our classrooms.

Senior TA Ethan Berndt won the award for Saint John’s University Student Employee of the Year. Ethan will begin his career in Deloitte’s tax department.

We had social events: our first ever department Bags tournament, a Super Bowl content, a senior barbeque with the professors, and a NCAA March Madness bracket. CSB and SJU President Brian Bruess and Best Buy CEO Corie Barry were guest participants in our March Madness bracket!

Our major spring recruiting event, CPA², brought to campus nearly 100 representatives from 18 CPA firms, including all of the Big 4. More than 100 students attended this event! As a result of this event and our strong alumni connections, over 95% of our senior accounting majors had their full-time job lined-up by graduation, and we expect our remaining seniors will soon make their final employment decisions.

We have a lot of accounting and finance majors who flourish in athletics, with these being just a few examples:

• Junior Jane Bodensteiner was a star on the tennis court. She earned All-Conference honors in both singles and doubles and at one point put together an 11-match winning streak. She has an internship lined up with Best Buy.
• Sophomore Sophia Jonas was named All-Conference in women’s basketball and twice earned conference player of the week honors. She has an internship lined up with PWC.
• Junior Jack Schleper earned All-Conference honors in baseball. He has an internship lined up at UnitedHealth Group.
• Junior Nate Loxtercamp placed in the top 30 nationally and his Saint John’s golf team finished 5^th at nationals. He has an internship lined up with PWC.
• Senior Wil McDowell was All-Conference in tennis.
• First year student Grace Fitzgibbons was second in both goals and points for the new Saint Ben’s Lacrosse team.

Outside of sports, many of our students participated in the arts, including the Wind Ensemble and our various choirs. Many of our students are also leaders in student clubs.

It is a great time to be a part of the Accounting and Finance Department!