Number of Minority Business Professors Doubles in Eight YearsMONTVALE, N.J.
In just eight years, the number of doctorally qualified minority professors at U.S. business schools has doubled, reports the Montvale, N.J.-based The PhD Project, a sweeping initiative to diversify university business school faculties.
In 1994, the year The PhD project was founded, there were only 294 doctorally qualified minority professors at U.S. business schools. Today, the number has increased to 588.
Officials at The PhD project credit the organization's comprehensive outreach, education and peer support program for the creation of a "new generation of minority professors."
The organization also reports that there are currently 416 minority doctoral students, ensuring that in four years there will likely be more than 900 minority business professors, which is triple the starting number in 1994.
"Eight years to double, four more to triple," says Bernie Milano, president of the KPMG Foundation, a founder and the administrator and lead sponsor of The PhD Project.
But with 1,200 colleges and universities with schools of business and about 900 minority business school professors, Milano warns, there still will be less than one per school.
"There is much more to do to create a diverse faculty that will provide a more complete educational experience for all students," Milano says.
The PhD project, a partnership between academia and leading corporations, aims to create more minority professors by urging successful African American, Hispanic and American Indian business executives to leave corporate jobs, earn their doctorates and become business school professors. Currently, less than 3 percent of business school professors are minorities. 

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