Since 1994, the PhD Project, which is sponsored by the KPMG Foundation, has helped increase minority business school professors from 294 to 751, which is 3 percent of all business faculty. Currently, a group of 417 students, originally steered to business Ph.D. programs by the PhD Project, are in the doctoral pipeline, according to Milano. Aside from recruiting efforts, the PhD Project hosts academic association conferences for the students recruited and admitted to the business schools.
CEO’s Clegg acknowledges that private organizations are free to operate race- and ethnic-specific academic recruitment and support programs so long as they don’t involve cooperation from public educational institutions or institutions that accept public funding.
SREB’s Abraham says that the doctoral program he manages was established in 1993 in a way to avoid potential legal problems regarding whom it benefits. Minority students can apply to it only after they have been admitted and enrolled into a doctoral program, Abraham says, thus putting responsibility on the student to seek an available five-year package of financial support. Participation in the program also exposes students to networking and mentoring opportunities.
“Our motto is that we’re more than just a handshake and a check. If left to chance, I’m convinced it would take decades to achieve the progress we’ve had with minority doctoral recipients,” Abraham says.
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