Jean Riley-Schultz, assistant professor of practice in accounting, is known for making students a priority in her teaching. After more than 10 years of educating young minds at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, she retired from the College of Business Administration at the end of the spring 2016 semester. As the instructor of introductory courses Accounting for Business Decisions (ACCT 200), Introductory Accounting I (ACCT 201) and Introductory Accounting II (ACCT 202), Riley-Schultz touched the lives of thousands of students.

Casey Gieseking, from Columbus, Nebraska, earned her bachelor’s degree this spring in business with a double major in accounting, and natural resources and environmental economics. She said Riley-Schultz changed her life and encouraged her to pursue higher education in the master of professional accountancy program at UNL, which she will begin this fall.

“After taking her ACCT 201 class, I fell in love with accounting and later became peer mentor for her class,” Gieseking said. “She will always have a special place in my life. Because of her caring support and encouragement, I was able to find my path in accounting. She is an amazing person.”

Riley-Schultz started teaching at UNL in 2002 as a lecturer and became an assistant professor of practice in 2012. Utilizing her professional background in accounting, she used examples from her time as a senior tax consultant at Deloitte & Touche to give real-world advice to students. She was also assistant vice president and financial consultant II for Wells Fargo Bank and has been a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) for more than 20 years.

“In class, she related to some of the challenges students faced when doing accounting cash flows and shared her experience from working at Deloitte. This helped the students realize that working through the problems will pay off in the end,” Gieseking said. “She is very dedicated to her students. She cares about them and wants them to succeed. She is passionate about the material and was always willing to go the extra mile to help her students.”

Best known for creating unique extra credit opportunities, Riley-Schultz assigned a Random Act of Kindness (RAK) each year. Through this assignment, she encouraged students to perform a RAK in the hopes of building and strengthening the community.

“I love seeing the photos students have posted for the extra credit assignments,” Riley-Schultz said. “CBA encourages students to go above and beyond. My students have always taken this challenge and accomplished great things that impact people in their communities.”

This year, she used social media to complete the RAK assignment by having students use the hashtag #UNLCBArak and report their RAKs by posting them on Twitter and Instagram. Additionally, this spring semester she let students earn extra credit by finding things on campus that reminded them of accounting and posting them on social media using the hashtag #UNLCBA.  Published: May 18, 2016