The Ph D Project - The Project's Approach

The Project's Approach

The PhD Project uses a three-pronged approach to increasing the population of minority business professors:

• The first component of The PhD Project is a marketing campaign to identify a population of the best and brightest potential PhD candidates of color – via an extensive direct mail, print advertising and public relations campaign. Qualified candidates are invited to visit The Project web site and apply to The PhD Project annual conference.

• The second component of The PhD Project is its annual conference. Qualified candidates are invited to this two-day annual conference where they hear from deans, professors and current minority doctoral students about the benefits of pursuing a business PhD. At this time, candidates are exposed to more than 80 doctoral-granting universities that are represented during a four-hour exhibit show at the conference. Many of these candidates are recruited before they even enter a program.

• The third component of the program is the Minority Doctoral Student Associations, formed by The PhD Project as a means of combating the high (25 percent) attrition rate inherent among all business doctoral students. Through these professional peer associations (in accounting, finance, information systems, management and marketing) minority doctoral students establish peer support relationships with others who are facing similar challenges on the way to becoming business school professors. Every minority business doctoral student in a full-time, AACSB-accredited program is a member of one of these associations. Each association has an annual conference held in conjunction with the relevant professional academic association. There, the Ph.D. students receive guidance and information concerning every step of the process of earning the doctorate and obtaining employment. The retention rate of doctoral students who are members of these associations exceeds 90 percent.