Outstanding CPA in Education Award

This award pays tribute to the outstanding contribution by CPAs who have dedicated their life’s work to accounting education. These individuals have demonstrated a passion for and commitment to the profession by providing an educational foundation for future generations of CPAs. This award acknowledges excellence in teaching and a contribution to and promotion of the accounting profession.

Marie Elaine Gioiosa’s dedication to her students—as an associate professor of accounting at Iona University—has inspired them to enjoy rewarding careers. In her years of teaching, she has instilled in them a passion for accounting, just as one mentor did for her. She is this year’s winner of the Dr. Emanuel Saxe Outstanding CPA in Education Award.

After graduating from St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School on Staten Island, Gioiosa attended St. John’s University, where she met Associate Dean and Professor Irene N. McCarthy, the first woman to teach accounting at the university’s Staten Island campus. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and Dean McCarthy said, ‘How about accounting?’ So, I said, ‘Let’s go for it.’ As they say, the rest is history,” she recalled.

“I knew that I had an aptitude for numbers,” she continued. “I was in the process of changing majors. I was looking at computer science or accounting. By taking her intermediate accounting class, I knew that I wanted to be an accounting professor. She inspired me.”

But first, McCarthy told her to “get into the field, become a certified public accountant and then, when you’re ready, come back into teaching.”

So she did, working at Peat Marwick (now KPMG) for five years as an auditor and a tax specialist before pronouncing herself “done with public accounting.” She then went to the Sisters of Charity Health System (SCHS), where she eventually went into the information systems department, and during which time she earned her MBA in taxation from St. John’s University. She next went to Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH), which “was implementing the same software system, and they lured me away,” she said. Her time in the information systems departments at both SCHS and SIUH enabled her to “be able to speak accounting to the nonaccounting people in the organization so the financial software system could be implemented,” she said.

Just as McCarthy advised, she came back to teaching, as an adjunct professor at regional colleges, while continuing to work full time. The experience convinced her to embark on that path, but there was a hitch: She needed to obtain a doctorate. Returning to school in January 2014, she earned her Ph.D. in higher education leadership management and policy from Seton Hall University in December 2016. She was hired by Iona College, as it was then known, three months before graduating with her Ph.D.

It turned out to be a good career choice.

“Marie is very talented as a professor,” said her colleague Katherine Kinkela, chair and associate professor of accounting at Iona. “Her students love her.”

“You want to create the optimal learning experience for students, and Marie is excellent at that,” Kinkela said. “Marie receives consistently excellent reviews from students. Anecdotally, too, she has made an impact on students’ lives. They request her classes all the time. She is in constant demand.”

“I am into teaching because I want to be here,” Gioiosa said. “I love what I do. I believe in the accounting degree. I also believe in getting an education.”

Kinkela pointed out that Gioiosa teaches a broad variety of classes at all levels, including Introduction to Financial Accounting, Intermediate and Advanced Accounting, Managerial Accounting, Cost Measurement and Analysis, and Auditing Principles and Procedures.

“In my classroom, I do a lot of active learning,” which incorporates real-life situations, Gioiosa said. “I am going to make sure that my students get actively involved. It promotes soft skills that students are expected to have when they graduate, such as being able to work on a team, and researching and sharing relevant information. So, in my classroom, I try to get the students comfortable with these settings. I get it—I have to lecture, because I am introducing topics. But if you come into my classroom, you will see active learning, too. For example, at the beginning of the semester in my Advanced Financial Accounting class, we learn about ways to divert a hostile takeover. To introduce new, related terminology, I will put students into preselected groups and give the groups about 10-15 minutes to find the terms and examples of this happening in the ‘real world,’ which they then share with the class.”

She also teaches an Introduction to Business class as part of a learning community which introduces résumé writing and networking, to help her students succeed during and after college. “We’re fortunate; we have small classes, so the students become friends in the end, and I see that’s so important because networking starts here,” she said.

She also continues to research and publish in academic journals. Her last three papers, about active learning and other classroom exercises, included Kinkela as a co-author.

“As a scholar, she is wonderful to work with,” said Kinkela. “We had a lot of fun working together. We both enjoy what we do.”

Gioiosa joined the Society, and its Staten Island Chapter, in 2016—the same year she joined the Iona faculty—in order to stay connected to the profession. At her first chapter meeting, she saw a familiar face: Rosemarie Giovinazzo-Barnickel, an acquaintance from high school whom she had not seen in 25 years.

“We reconnected when she joined,” said Giovinazzo-Barnickel, last year’s winner of the Outstanding CPA in Chapter Service Award. “She immediately became an active chapter member, and it was as if she’d been active the entire time.”

Giovinazzo-Barnickel enthused about the contributions Gioiosa makes to the chapter.

“Marie takes great pride in her role as a tenured professor,” she said. “She has been able to provide input from a student’s perspective, as well as that from an educator’s viewpoint. The chapter members have had many discussions about student recruitment into the accounting profession, feedback regarding the CPA exam, and post-college employment, and Marie has always added valuable and meaningful commentary. The Staten Island Chapter is proud to call Marie a fellow member.”

Frank J. DeCandido, the Staten Island Chapter president, nominated Gioiosa for this award, writing, “She is an exceptional accounting educator who always has her students’ best interests in mind. This is illustrated through her work with the NYSSCPA, in her classroom, and through her research.” He added, “Over the past several years, Dr. Gioiosa has made numerous presentations at various conferences, including those hosted by the American Accounting Association. The topics she presented related to preparing students for their careers in accounting.”

As NYSSCPA campus liaison for Iona, and a member of the Society’s Moynihan Scholarship Fund’s (MSF) Board of Trustees., Gioiosa remains “thrilled” to help her students become aware of the scholarship money. So far, she said, approximately 20 scholarships have been awarded to her students through the MSF.

She is also proud of many of the programs that the Staten Island Chapter has started, such as outreach to high school students who are interested in becoming an accountant. Last semester’s “World of Accounting” event, which she credited DeCandido with putting together “single-handedly,” attracted about 250 students to St. John’s campus.

“How do you know that you’re doing the right thing?” she asked, in evaluating her career. “It’s my emails that come back from my students saying, ‘Thank you so much for sharing that information with me.’ It’s my student evaluations, it’s that research that came through, … and then, of course, this award.”

“It’s all true validation for the work I’m doing, so that I continue to work in this fashion so that my students succeed. I want my students to succeed, and that’s why I do what I do.”

ssteinhardt@nysscpa.org