Dr. Michael B. Clement, KPMG Centennial Professor of Accounting, was announced as one of the 2015 inductees into the PhD Project’s Hall of Fame.
According to Dr. Clement, “The mission of the PhD Project is to encourage underrepresented minorities to pursue PhDs in business. We started the project 20 years ago and I have been involved with it since the beginning. It has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career.”
Dr. Clement sets a high standard for doctoral candidates as director of the Department of Accounting’s PhD program.
Dr. Jennifer Joe, one of his nominators for the Hall Of Fame, said, “I don’t believe that it would be an exaggeration to state that were it not for Michael Clement, there might be not be a PhD Project as we know it today. Even as a student about to graduate, Michael served as a role model to many of us who were at the beginning of our doctoral careers. In his quiet self-deprecating manner he let us know that if he was able to succeed, then the rest of us could.”
The PhD Project, a non-profit organization founded by the KPMG Foundation in 1994, recruits minority professionals from business into doctoral programs in all business disciplines. Since its inception, the PhD Project has been a driving force behind the increase in the number of minority business professors from 294 to 1,269. Further, 308 minority students are currently enrolled in doctoral programs, and will take their place at the front of the classroom over the next few years. The Project attacks a root cause of minority under-representation in corporate jobs: historically, very few minority college students study business as an entrée to a corporate career. Diversifying the faculty attracts more minorities to study business and better prepares all students to function in a multicutural workforce.