Ernst and Young, one of the largest professional services firms in the world, has pledged a $1 million gift to the Tull School of Accounting in UGA’s Terry College of Business.
The Tull School of Accounting will designate two Ernst and Young Teaching Fellows in recognition of the pledge. Ben Ayers, the Tull School’s director, said the Ernst and Young gift will impact all aspects of the school, including support for faculty research and teaching, endowed professorships, student organizations and scholarships. A portion of the pledge will be directed to other donor funds in Terry and at UGA.
“This gift far exceeds all previous campaign efforts,” Ayers said. “Ernst and Young has taken a leading role in the school’s success, not only with its long-term financial support, but also as one of the foremost recruiters of our students. The firm’s generous commitment sends a strong signal of the success of our alumni at E and Y and their investment in the education of our students.”
“I am very proud of the more than 200 UGA alumni at Ernst and Young, whose personal financial commitments made this gift possible,” said John Schraudenbach, a partner in the firm’s Atlanta office. “The University of Georgia is one of Ernst and Young’s primary sources of great students who join our firm every year, and we are committed to helping the Tull School and Terry wherever we can.”
A Terry College graduate with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting, Schraudenbach is a member of the Tull School of Accounting Advisory Board and the Terry College Alumni Board. He coordinated Ernst and Young’s campaign on behalf of the Tull School with Carter Posner, a 1996 Terry College accounting graduate.
In addition to the more general scholarship and faculty support this new pledge will fund, Ernst and Young also has provided annual financial support of a named professorship since the late 1990s, when Dennis R. Beresford was named the Tull School’s Ernst and Young Executive Professor of Accounting. Beresford chaired the Financial Accounting Standards Board from 1987-1997 and previously was the national director of accounting standards for the firm.
