{"id":15981,"date":"2021-01-27T14:35:10","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T14:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/?p=15981"},"modified":"2021-02-02T14:31:53","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T14:31:53","slug":"fiu-business-alumnas-scholarship-endowment-will-support-diverse-female-future-accountants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/2021\/01\/27\/fiu-business-alumnas-scholarship-endowment-will-support-diverse-female-future-accountants\/","title":{"rendered":"FIU Business alumna\u2019s scholarship endowment will support diverse, female future accountants"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\nFIU College of Business alumna Jacqueline Cecile Williams \u201994, CPA, recently made a planned gift to FIU that will establish a scholarship to help bolster the future pipeline of minority, female accountants in South Florida.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nInspired by the financial support and guidance she received as a student preparing to break into the accounting industry, Williams knew she would one day want to pay it forward. After seeing the difficulties the COVID-19 pandemic has caused for so many people, she decided to act. Designating a planned gift to the university in her will made the process simple and accessible.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201cI was looking back at what\u2019s important… and realizing things could change at any moment. This was something I always wanted to do, but hadn\u2019t thought of doing this soon,\u201d Williams said. She likes that she can see an immediate impact on students\u2019 lives at FIU \u2013 her planned gift establishing the scholarship endowment was coupled with a cash gift to fund the first scholarship awards, which will be granted this year. Fundraising will continue to grow the endowment further and award future scholarships.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWilliams was an advocate for minority, female professionals long before she realized she had the means to create a scholarship endowment through planned giving.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHer own path wasn\u2019t an easy one \u2013 accounting is by nature a competitive field, and the sense of competition was only heightened by the fact that she wanted to break into what was, at the time, a male-dominated profession. It\u2019s the reason that, once she became a certified public accountant, she made it a point to recommend other minority women seeking employment to her company managers, as well as sharing her career advice with them.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to inspire others, and as a minority woman striving to accomplish the highest of whatever it is that I do, I also wanted to make sure I support students fighting for that same dream.\u201d\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWith hard work and determination at FIU, Williams earned a spot in the prestigious Beta Alpha Psi accounting fraternity, which became the springboard to earn her first job.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nShe worked full-time throughout most of her studies to support herself. Earning a scholarship helped relieve some of the financial burden \u2013 and the fact that the scholarship was created by a successful female businessowner motivated her to succeed.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201c[The scholarship] really had an impact on me. It inspired me to go further in my education, because in my family, I was the first one that finished college,\u201d she said.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRecalling her own benefactor years ago, Williams feels it\u2019s her turn to assume the role. She hopes the Jacqueline Cecile Williams Accounting Scholarship will embolden young women and fortify the pipeline of diverse talent entering the accounting industry.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe first scholarship will be awarded in 2021, and it will support minority, female-identifying students studying accounting in the FIU College of Business, with preference given to those who are members of accounting professional societies.<\/em> If you are interested in supporting the Jacqueline Cecile Williams Accounting Scholarship Endowment<\/strong>, please click here<\/a>.<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIf you are interested in exploring ways you can make an impact at FIU through planned giving, please visit <\/em>Estate & Planned Giving at the FIU Foundation, Inc.<\/em><\/a>\r\n\r\nIf you are a student pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree in accounting and you are interested in applying for the Jacqueline Cecile Williams Accounting Scholarship<\/strong> please click here<\/a>. <\/em>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIU College of Business alumna Jacqueline Cecile Williams \u201994, CPA, recently made a planned gift to FIU that will establish a scholarship to help bolster the future pipeline of minority, female accountants in South Florida. Inspired by the financial support and guidance she received as a student preparing to break into the accounting industry, Williams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":15982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[368],"tags":[453,96,376,485,12,463,458,441,366],"class_list":["post-15981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philanthropy","tag-alumni","tag-college-of-business","tag-donor-spotlight","tag-donors","tag-fiu-alumni","tag-fiu-next-horizon","tag-increase-scholarships-and-student-support","tag-next-horizon","tag-philanthropy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15981"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15991,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15981\/revisions\/15991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}