Wharton branches out to boost graduate school diversity

Only three percent of business school professors in the United States are minorities.

The Wharton doctoral program is trying to increase this number by partnering with outside organizations and creating events to recruit more underrepresented minorities. One such program is Introduction to Diversity in Doctoral Education and Scholarship — IDDEAS — which will occur this Thursday and Friday.

The program seeks to introduce potential doctoral students to business research and encourage minorities to pursue a doctoral degree. Students from various universities who expressed an interest in doctoral studies were invited to attend the program, and they will hear Wharton faculty share what it means to get a Ph.D. in business.

“I think it’s important to bring talented people into doctoral programs, and that includes people of diverse backgrounds and diverse races,” said Vice Dean and Director of Wharton Doctoral Programs Eric Bradlow. “We teach a diverse population, so we as a faculty need to be diverse.”

Besides IDDEAS, Wharton has held several other events and worked with organizations such as “The PhD Project” to recruit underrepresented minorities — specifically African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Native Americans — to their program.

“The PhD Project” works with doctoral programs to connect minority students with graduate schools and encourage them to pursue a Ph.D. Wharton partners with “The PhD Project” by providing financial support as well as attending a yearly conference held in November.

Wharton currently has three minority faculty members and three current doctoral students who were involved with “The PhD Project,” according to “The PhD Project” President Bernard Milano.

Milano said that schools should be “aggressive” about getting the word out to students about doctoral programs.

“[Schools] should be going into their graduate student classes and undergraduate classes and advocating for people thinking about a career as a professor,” Milano said.

Wharton MBA student Etzerson Philitas does not, however, see this happening at Wharton.

“Most people who come into [Wharton MBA] want to go into finance or consulting or do something entrepreneurially,” he said. He himself is going into investing, though he said he would consider a job as a professor.

Philitas noted that it is important to have a diverse faculty, but he does not see it at Wharton.

“When you look at faculty members that are part of the core curriculum and the academic engagement that students encounter on campus, you don’t see many faculty that look like the student body,” he said.

Fellow Wharton MBA student Ajay Anand had similar sentiments, noting that the faculty is less diverse than the student body — “very American, Caucasian, but a lot of the younger professors are reflective of the diversity, and that will probably catch up,” he said.

With programs like IDDEAS, webinars, mailings to undergraduates and several other initiatives, the Wharton doctoral program seeks to create a faculty that, in Anand’s words, is more “reflective of the diversity” of the student body.

That starts with awareness, Bradlow added.

“Nobody has [as] diverse a population as they want, but we’re extremely proud of where we are now,” he said.

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