2024 Intermediate Accounting and Reporting (Recordings)

Shea Bryant has been the manager of financial reporting at Michigan State University for six years after over seven years at Plante Moran where he focused on higher education institutions. Bryant’s department is in charge of preparing the year-end financial statements and implementing new GASB standards as they are issued. Bryant is a member of the NACUBO accounting principles council.

Teresa Edwards, CPA, is an experienced accounting professional with over 35 years of experience issuing and compiling financial statements, analyzing accounting standards, reengineering business processes, testing accounting systems, and managing teams of professionals. Edwards has been the controller at the Texas A&M University system office since 2011. In this role, she is responsible for the oversight of the system office accounting operations, interpreting the impact of new accounting standards to the 24 Texas A&M institutions/agencies, compiling the consolidated annual financial report, assisting IT system enhancements on the accounting system and various other reporting requirements. Edwards also worked at the Florida Department of Financial Services and the Texas Comptroller’s Office. Prior to governmental accounting, she worked in corporate accounting and worked for a CPA firm in the Houston area. Edwards is a graduate of Texas A&M University.

Tom Ewing has over 30 years of higher education accounting and reporting experience at The Ohio State University. He is a CPA and earned his MBA at The Ohio State University in 2012. Ewing is a former member and chair of NACUBO's accounting principles council and received the Daniel D. Robinson award in 2020. He also served on the GASB disclosure framework task force. Ewing has been married for 37 years to his wife, Colleen. They have two grown daughters and a five-year-old granddaughter.

Kelli Perry joined the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as the association vice president for finance and controller in September 2010. She serves as a key member of the senior finance team and is responsible for providing overall leadership for accounting services, financial reporting, disbursements, e-business (including travel management), systems, enterprise risk management, and operations. She has served in leadership roles in finance, administration, and student financial services. She brings a wide array of experience to her position, as she has had broader responsibility beyond finance, serving as the architect of a student financial services office, worked closely with information technology to implement a range of technology-based process improvements, supervised a budget office, human resources, and business services. She has also served in an acting vice president’s role, which has allowed her to interact with college leadership and serve on a president’s cabinet. Before focusing her efforts in higher education, she worked as an auditor for KPMG. Perry co-led the reengineering of Rensselaer’s procurement process utilizing e-commerce to improve customer service and achieve cost savings. She was also the lead on the travel management implementation that has significantly increased process efficiency and mitigated risk at Rensselaer. She is currently the chair of the enterprise risk management and student employment initiatives at Rensselaer and works closely with the outsourced internal audit function facilitating the relationship with campus.

Nicole Tirella, senior vice president, chief financial officer, and treasurer for Boston University oversees the financial operations including accounting and financial reporting, debt and treasury functions, research financial operations, risk management, sourcing and procurement, and internal audit. She is a certified public accountant and an active member of NACUBO's accounting principles council. She spent over seven years as an auditor for KPMG, specializing in higher education and not-for-profit entities. Before coming to Boston University, she was the associate controller at the University of Massachusetts within the president’s office where she led the compilation of the university system’s consolidated financial statements.

Karl Strauss, MBA, joined Oregon Health and Science University in June 2019 as accounting manager and was promoted to director of accounting in March 2021. He is a chartered financial analyst (CFA), certified public accountant (CPA), and certified healthcare financial professional (CHFP) with over a decade of experience in higher education including years with St. Bonaventure University serving as director of finance and controller. Prior to higher education, he held a career in investment management.

Terri Albertson is the vice president for finance and administration at Ursinus College. She was previously with Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and Haverford College. She has spent over 25 years in public accounting at national firms with an industry focus on colleges and universities, healthcare entities, and not-for-profit organizations. She is the current chair of NACUBO's accounting principles council and is a graduate of NACUBO's Fellows program. She is a member of the board of trustees of Salus University and is on the audit and compliance committee and the finance committee.

Mary Spina Wheeler is a project consultant for NACUBO and updates NACUBO’s Financial Accounting and Reporting Manual (FARM). She is also the owner of MS Wheeler Financial Services, LLC, providing financial and operational services to higher education and other nonprofit organizations. Wheeler writes and presents on all matters related to nonprofit and higher education accounting and financial reporting. She is the author of NACUBO’s Endowment Fund Valuation Guide and the 2012 recipient of NACUBO’s Daniel D. Robinson Award, recognizing outstanding contributions to the field of college and university accounting and reporting. Wheeler’s career includes management positions at Cornell University, St. Lawrence University, Skidmore College, Stevens Institute of Technology, and the Arizona State University Foundation. 

Chris Leach is accounting policy analyst at NACUBO. Prior to that, he served for almost 20 years in associate vice president and controller positions at both Texas A&M University-San Antonio and Washburn University. Leach also has extensive experience in the private sector. He was assistant vice president for strategic planning and analysis at Security Benefit Group, a financial services company based in Topeka, KS. He began his professional career in the audit practice of Deloitte and Touche in Baton Rouge, LA. Chris left Deloitte in 1994 as an audit senior manager after time in the firm's national office and its Columbus, OH, office. Chris received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in professional accountancy from Mississippi State University. He has held certified public accountant (CPA) licenses in Mississippi (active), Louisiana (inactive), and Ohio (inactive). He and his wife, DeAnn, live in Columbus, MS, with their three dogs, two cats, and the occasional field mouse.

Sue Menditto is NACUBO’s expert on financial accounting and reporting, managerial analysis, and financial viability. She is charged with fulfilling higher education advocacy needs with the GASB, FASB, AICPA, and Department of Education. She was appointed to the IPEDS Finance Survey Workgroup in August 2023 as one of its financial reporting experts. She has also represented higher education on the Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council (2006–2012), AICPA’s Revenue Recognition Task Force (2016–2017), and the Department of Education’s financial responsibility subcommittee (2017–2018).

Menditto informs the association’s research efforts on accounting issues, endowment management, and tuition discounting; writes member communications: news, advisories, accounting tutorials, and articles; and supports members’ professional development needs by providing subject matter guidance. She has also co-authored chapters of publications addressing accounting, public health, and analytics and regularly speaks on accounting and financial management topics at conferences.

Menditto began her career in public accounting, was a CFO and Controller for a not-for-profit organization, and a vice president for Bank of America where she specialized in change management and accounting policy. She holds degrees in psychology and accounting and is a certified public accountant.