MONTVALE, N.J. – A full 100 percent of the minorities who completed Ph.D. degrees in business in 2016 as participants of The PhD Project found faculty employment by year’s end – countering the mistaken popular belief that job opportunities for new professors are hard to find.

“Employment prospects are extremely bright for new professors coming out of doctoral studies in business,” said Bernard J. Milano, president of The PhD Project. “That is certainly so for the African-Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans in The PhD Project.”

The PhD Project reported that all 46 of its doctoral graduates seeking full-time tenure track business faculty positions had obtained them by the close of 2016.1

“The job market for business professors is vibrant,” Milano said. “People who are contemplating a career switch to become a professor but who have heard somewhere that jobs are scarce in academia, should know that opportunities abound for new professors of business.”

In addition, business professor jobs pay well: “It is common for business professors to earn six-figure salaries,” Milano said who is also president of the KPMG Foundation, as well as founder and lead sponsor of The PhD Project.

Milano noted that many factors, including a faculty shortage in some business disciplines like accounting caused by wide-scale retirement of boomer-generation professors, have resulted in demand outweighing supply in business academia.  Further, with many colleges and universities actively seeking to increase faculty diversity, this presents additional opportunities for doctorally-qualified minorities in all disciplines. 

The PhD Project is an award-winning program whose ultimate goal is to create a more diverse corporate America. It works to do this by increasing faculty diversity at hundreds of colleges and universities, creating role models and mentors who can attract more minority undergraduates to study business. It is the only nationwide program aimed at diversifying university faculty. It attracts and enables African-, Hispanic and Native Americans to choose college teaching as a career and succeed in the rigorous process of obtaining a Ph.D., which qualifies them to be professors. 

The PhD Project prepares its participants to succeed first in their doctoral studies and then on the job market through extensive enrichment, mentoring, networking and development. Senior doctoral students are coached and mentored by veteran faculty members before they begin interviewing for professor positions. 

Since its inception in 1994, The PhD Project has been responsible for the increase in the number of minority business professors from 294 to 1,358. An additional 270 minorities are currently enrolled in doctoral programs and will take a place at the front of the classroom over the next few years. 

“Although the increase has been significant, minorities are still seriously underrepresented on business school faculties,” Milano noted. “There is still a long way to go.”

The PhD Project receives ongoing support from its sponsoring companies, participating universities and organizations and supply alliance members. Its founding organizations in addition to KPMG Foundation are the Graduate Management Admission Council, Citi Foundation, AACSB International. Leading corporations, foundations and associations funding it include:  more than 300 participating universities; AICPA Foundation; DiversityInc; Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP; Rockwell Collins; Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.; American Marketing Association; John Deere Foundation; CIGNA; Edison International (on behalf of the California State University System); Lincoln Financial Group; Aerotek/ TEKsystems (operating companies of Allegis Group); American Accounting Association; The Hershey Company; Academy of Management; NASBA; OCWEN and Thrivent Financial. •

1A 47th doctoral graduate chose to take a position as CEO of a business rather than an academic appointment at this time. 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN_rVl5sKA4

Source: The PhD Project