Five UCR School of Business students received scholarships from CalCPA, the largest state CPA society in the nation, on May 17 at the society’s Installation & Scholarship ceremony, and the day’s events also included a game tournament at Topgolf in Ontario, California, and the UCR Business team won the CalCPA IE Chapter Battle of the Firms trophy.

“We led a fantastic delegation of faculty, admissions staff, and students to the CalCPA Inland Empire Chapter event,” says Steve Chen, UCR’s A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management (AGSM) director of Graduate Admissions.

Of the 19 scholarships totaling $30,000, the five UCR scholarship recipients were Christopher Buchanan ’25, Noel Lofton ’25, Nicholas Palencia ’24, Vignesh Vasudevan ’24 MPAc, and Hai Yang ’25. “Their hard work and achievements are commendable,” says Chen. “We are immensely proud of each student, congratulations!”

This was the first partnership between UCR School of Business and CalCPA, says Irene Song, associate director of the school’s Graduate Admissions, “Our office met previously with CalCPA about ways to collaborate with them on events, firm visits, and educational programs where we can promote our Master of Professional Accountancy [MPAc] program and send our MPAc students to career events.”

In addition to the scholarship recipients, Chen, and Song, the school’s winning delegation included Assistant Professor of Accounting Eric Allen, Yang An ’23 MPAc, AGSM Associate Director of Graduate Admissions Patrick Latimer, and Haoshen Wang ’24 MPAc.

Adds Chen: “A heartfelt thank you to Erica Farr and Marjorie McPike with CalCPA Inland Empire Chapter for allowing us to be a silver sponsor and for hosting this wonderful event.”