TONYA K. FLESHER was honored at the recent American Accounting Association Annual Meeting in San Diego by being awarded life membership in the Academy of Accounting Historians.  She is a past president (1993) of the Academy.

      The awarding of a Life Membership is rare and is based on the following criteria. These criteria are not an exhaustive list but are intended to provide guidance to the Selection Committee in its deliberations and decisions:

• international profile and recognition – the individual should have a global profile and not one simply within his/her country;
• the quality, importance and originality of the individual’s research program;
• the scholar’s scope of work, publication record in various academic journals and edited volumes;
• his/her active participation in the academy (in the generic sense and not only the Academy of Accounting Historians), including contributions to the field as journal editor, editorial board member, conferences, etc.;
• the individual’s work and efforts to popularize history and accounting history, including editing and publication of works, and efforts to bring accounting history's past into the present through the publication of old documents or records or the re-publication of forgotten texts; and
• the individual’s participation in the training of doctoral students.

      Tonya is the Arthur Andersen Alumni Professor and Dean Emerita of the Patterson School of Accountancy at the University of Mississippi.  She holds a BS from Ball State University (1971), an MA from Appalachian State University (1975), and a Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi (1979).  She is the author of eight books, including one of the best-selling tax textbooks in the country, and more than 80 articles.  She was the recipient of the Mississippi Society of CPAs 1995 Outstanding Educator of the Year Award.  Dr. Flesher is a past president of the Academy of Accounting Historians and has served on numerous committees of the AICPA and other professional organizations.  Dr. Flesher received the University of Mississippi's 1986 Burlington Northern Award as the outstanding faculty member campus wide.  She has been a departmental editor for two accounting journals.  Dr. Flesher was formerly the dean of the School of Accountancy at the University of Mississippi.  She was the first woman to hold an academic deanship in the then 140-year history of the University.  In 2020, she was the recipient of the AICPA’s Distinguished Achievement in Accounting Education Award as the top professor nationwide.

Included in this photo with Tonya Flesher are Stephen Fafatas, President-Elect and Yvette Lazdowski, President