This month’s Hero Award recipients are (from left) Jennifer Reynolds-Moerhle, Jennifer McKanry and Ahmad Mian (Photos by Derik Holtmann).

University of Missouri–St. Louis Chancellor Kristin Sobolik and her cabinet continue to recognize the exemplary efforts of staff and faculty members from across campus by bestowing the UMSL Hero Award on up to three individuals each month.

This month’s honorees are Jennifer McKanry, the assistant director of the Center for Teaching and Learning; Ahmad “Mobeen” Mian, a finance and accounting analyst lead in Student Financial Services; and Jennifer Reynolds-Moehrle, a professor of accounting in the College of Business Administration.

Jennifer McKanry

Jennifer McKanry has gotten used to transition during her seven years at UMSL. After starting at the university as an instructional designer in the summer of 2017, she took on the role of assistant director of the Center for Teaching and Learning in 2019. Just a few months later, the COVID-19 pandemic turned the education world upside down.

“I quickly wound up doing a lot of instructional design work because it was an all-hands-on-deck sort of situation with the pandemic,” McKanry said. “Everyone needed help figuring out how to quickly transition face-to-face courses to the online environment mid-semester, so it was a unique and different kind of challenge.”

Since then, McKanry has had time to settle into her role at the CTL. Much of her work has focused on faculty development, leading Summer CAMP and the Part-Time Faculty Teaching Circle and helping faculty members with student-centered course design. She also plays a pivotal role in planning the Focus on Teaching and Technology Conference for more than 1,000 faculty, staff and students each year. Recently, McKanry’s role has transitioned yet again, with a new focus on degree program assessment.

Over the past six months, she’s enjoyed learning more about degree program structure and assessment, thinking through the various moving parts of different degree programs and working side by side with faculty on program level assessment planning. Before joining UMSL, she worked for the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis in a similar capacity after spending 15 years working in medical education.

“I’m getting to know their degrees better and how that fits into the bigger picture of how we really think about the student experience – not just in a course, but how they really flow through the degree,” she said. “Understanding just how unique and different that pattern is for all of our degrees on campus, for me, has been exciting.”

Keeta Holmes, assistant vice provost for academic innovation and director of the CTL, noted the sheer number of responsibilities McKanry handles in her work, which leads to “phenomenal success” each year while also collaborating with campus and external partners to improve and refine CTL’s offerings. During the pandemic, she launched the Part-Time Faculty Teaching Circle, the format of which was guided by its own advisory group to give part-time faculty members a space to build community, and she also grew the yearly Summer CAMP program out of a resilient course design program offered in the summer of 2020.

“Even though she has precious little time, she has an orientation toward learning more and as such seeks opportunities to expand her skillset to help us reach our goals,” Holmes wrote in her nomination of McKanry for the Hero Award. “Jen is truly a talented, thoughtful and valued partner in our CTL work toward creating a rewarding, supportive and goal-oriented place for our faculty and graduate students who are lucky enough to work with her. She is a careful listener as she tunes the resources and supports based on what they indicate needing most. Seeing the vast and varied list of accomplishments in the past year is overwhelming evidence of how much I and UMSL lean on her.”

McKanry’s role has evolved over the years as she’s taken on new responsibilities, but the throughline of all her experiences – and one she hopes to continue doing for the rest of her career – is working with faculty and being a partner with them in teaching. And while she enjoys reading about the Hero Award recipients each month, many of whom she’s had the opportunity to work with across campus, she never imagined she’d be the one nominated.

“It came as a total surprise out of left field,” McKanry said. “I’m honored, and that’s how I feel every day I come to work. I’m so fortunate to work with both an amazing team here at the CTL and with so many different campus partners. That’s what’s so cool about UMSL – everybody is just so committed to the success of our students, and that’s why I love working here.”

Ahmad “Mobeen” Mian

A few months ago, Advancement Services was working to train several new team members on check deposit and CRR entry in Woods Hall. In the midst of training, the electricity went out.

Vice Chancellor for Advancement Lisa Capone said that Ahmad “Mobeen” Mian, a finance and accounting analyst lead in Student Financial Services, was incredibly helpful in immediately stepping in to train staff and offer a point of check deposit while the electric work was being done. “Mobeen was positive and patient while many new team members sought his insight and guidance on very sensitive and specific money-handling procedures,” Capone wrote in nominating Mian for the Hero Award. “To this day, Mobeen is a major partner in shaping Advancement Services work, and I am grateful.”

In his role, Mian handles just about anything related to financials and accounting for Student Financial Services. That includes managing payments and accounts receivable for student tuition, scholarship accounts and loans. He also handles all the accounting and finance for federal programs such as the Federal Work-Study Program and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants and loan programs for the College of Nursing and College of Optometry through the Health Resources and Services Administration.

Before finding his niche in accounting, Mian, who grew up in St. Charles, initially wanted to be a train engineer as a kid. He ended up earning a bachelor’s in accounting from UMSL and was working part-time in a nursing home when a colleague, who worked at UMSL as an auditor, encouraged him to apply for a position at the university. He wound up getting the job and has been at UMSL for the past five and a half years.

Mian enjoys the work, as he can put his accounting skills to use, and the job always keeps him on his toes.

“Every day, it’s something usually new or challenging,” he said. “I like that. It’s kind of a change of pace. The education industry is changing quite a bit, so there’s always quite a few challenges we have. Sometimes I get to work with the students, help them out, and hear their stories. Finance is a very difficult topic to talk about with students – college is expensive, and it’s not that easy for everyone to pay – and I like that challenge.”

In addition to his work in Student Financial Services, Mian is currently pursuing his master’s in accounting from UMSL. After completing the program, he plans to sit for the CPA exam. And while he was surprised to find out he had been nominated for the Hero Award, it was a happy surprise.

“I didn’t think I did anything to earn that award, to be honest, but I’m very delighted and humbled that I received this,” he said.

Jennifer Reynolds-Moehrle

Jennifer Reynolds-Moehrle’s Hero Award nominations – all six of them – are a testament to the lasting impact she’s had on both students and fellow faculty members over the course of her 25 years as a professor of accounting in the College of Business Administration at UMSL. In addition to Associate Teaching Professor Marcia Countryman, Reynolds-Moehrle was nominated by several students who noted her passion for teaching, generosity and kindness.

Reynolds-Moehrle, who came to UMSL in 1999 after working as an assistant professor of accounting at the University of Southern California for two years, is “all-in” on UMSL’s mission of transforming lives. She primarily teaches students at the junior level but has also taught in the MBA and Master’s of Accounting programs. Because she teaches a required class on financial reporting, she’s been able to teach students across nearly all of UMSL Business’ accounting majors.

Reynolds-Moehrle has also been heavily involved on committees both in UMSL Business and UMSL more broadly, which she sees as an essential part of the job. Over the years, she’s served as the UMSL Business undergraduate studies committee chair and university physical facilities committee chair at UMSL in addition to roles with UM System as Innovative Teaching Award Committee chair and Student Entrepreneurship Award Committee chair.

“It’s an expectation and a responsibility on the part of faculty to contribute to the mission of the whole university,” she said. “The service to all those levels – at your department, your college and the whole university, to me, it’s an obvious part of what was ahead of me when I first signed on at UMSL. It’s part of what we all sign up for.”

Reynolds-Moehrle’s involvement also extends to the broader accounting profession in Missouri. Since 2016, she has served on the Board of Directors for the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants, an advocacy organization for the profession, and recently took over as chair of the executive board. She’s also heavily involved with the American Accounting Association, an academic organization, and has researched the history of accounting in the U.S., including the cultural significance of accounting.

For Reynolds-Moehrle, her involvement in the larger accounting community works two ways. Getting input from those working in the field exposes her to the most current issues facing the profession, from technical issues to professional dynamics, so that she can bring that information into the classroom and better equip UMSL accounting students to walk into any situation. Just as important, though, her involvement in those professional organizations gives her a voice to advocate on behalf of the student experience – particularly for nontraditional students.

“Our UMSL students are very representative of nontraditional students – very bright and very hardworking students, many of whom are coming to campus and then having to go to work or raise a family,” she said. “But oftentimes, outside of the UMSL setting, a lot of decisions get made with just the traditional state school student in mind. There has to be a voice that says, ‘Not everybody fits that mold.’”

Over the years, Reynolds-Moehrle has been excited to play a small role in the generational transformation of students and see her former accounting students succeed across the industry, whether as a partner of a local firm or a fellow educator elsewhere in the country. She’s holding on tight to those memories as she gears up to retire from UMSL Business on Sept. 1, though she’s certainly left a lasting impact on UMSL students over the years.

“Her heroic efforts have positively impacted UMSL student lives for over 25 years,” Countryman wrote in nominating Reynolds-Moehrle for the Hero Award. “Jennifer has been a pillar of accounting knowledge and strength in the UMSL Accounting program. Students depend on her to provide the critical intermediate accounting curriculum to help prepare them for the CPA exam and a successful accounting career. Jennifer is well-known for her teaching excellence. She received the Chancellor’s Excellence in Teaching award and the Missouri Society of CPA Educator of the Year Award. Jennifer has used active learning strategies and innovative technologies to encourage student success throughout her tenure at UMSL.”