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Description
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The PhD Project, an alliance
of corporations and higher education institutions, along
with numerous academic and professional associations,
utilizes a holistic approach to improve workplace diversity
by diversifying business school faculties. The PhD Project,
which began in 1994, actively recruits African-American,
Hispanic-American, and Native American professionals who
have an interest in pursuing a business doctorate. The
project sponsors a number of activities designed to
encourage minority participation in and completion of
doctoral programs in business including an aggressive,
targeted, direct mail and advertising campaign making the
case for considering an academic career. This is followed by
a two day conference each November that brings together
minority professionals with doctoral students, faculty and
doctoral program directors from around the country wherein
these professionals are exposed to the benefits and
challenges of doctoral study and academic careers in
business. Moreover, understanding that doctoral students
need support throughout their studies to encourage
completion of the degree, the project sponsor five doctoral
student associations in the major business disciplines --
accounting, finance, information systems, management and marketing -- which meet once a year in conjunction which
each discipline's major academic conference.
Results of The PhD Project
have exceeded expectations. The program has received more
than 20,000 inquiries since its inception and has brought
together 1,440 individuals to its annual conferences. In
just a three-year period, 323 individuals have begun their
doctoral programs. Only 126 Ph.D.s had been awarded in total
during the 3 years before that. The PhD Project has
encouraged real people, with backgrounds varying from giant
corporations to private practices, to change their lives and
pursue their doctorates. The project's lead sponsors are the
KPMG Foundation, the Graduate Management Admission Council
and graduate business schools.
http://www.phdproject.com
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