Workplaces diversify, then eye corner office

"I say: 'Folks, there's no enemy out there,' " says Bernie Milano, founder and administrator of the project, which is part of the New Jersey-based KPMG Foundation, established in 1968 to improve business higher education. "Schools have been giving us money, and corporate America is giving us access to their minority employees, realizing it's likely they'll lose some of their best workers [to academia].

"But they understand it's more important to have a person in front of a class for 20 to 30 years, affecting thousands and thousands of people," he says.

The project grew out of a concern Mr. Milano found among corporate recruiters: that they simply were not finding enough qualified minority students to hire. In researching the reasons why they weren't pursuing business degrees, says Milano, one thing was clear: There weren't enough role models.

"If you don't have natural mentors available," he says, "then it's difficult to draw people into specific areas. We felt it was a real deterrent."

The PhD Project spreads the word through annual conferences and constant contact with universities and businesses. Since the project began, says Milano, more than 30,000 students have asked for more information about the program. The group's efforts seem to be paying off: Currently, according to the project's figures, there are 596 minority faculty members in the US, up from 294 in 1994. There are an additional 406 minority students in doctoral programs today. If those students all become faculty members, the number of minority professors will triple by 2006.

But even with increased numbers of minorities in business schools, experts say that substantial change still needs to occur in the workplace. Specifically, they say, there is a need for more minority role models at the top. Currently, less than handful of Fortune 500 companies are run by people of color – with American Express and Federal Express as notable examples of minority leadership.

"I think significant strides have been made in the workforce in general, but we're still light years away from those strides being the same at the top," says Mike Hyter, president and CEO of J. Howard and Associates in Boston, which helps firms find and remove internal obstacles to providing greater management opportunities for minorities and women.

"The base of workers and employees has significantly shifted, and is much more reflective of the demographics of the country around us," he says. "But there is still this wall limiting progress toward where the opportunity to lead is made available to women and people of color."

Experts say the changes needed will be tough to make, because management promotions within a company often have a lot to do with more subtle areas of personal relationships than with specific training programs. And, they say, because the large-scale civil-rights protests of the 1960s are largely a thing of the past, employers may not realize the extent of discontent minority workers may be feeling.

In fact, according to Mr. Van Horn's recent survey, whites and minorities have sharply different perceptions about how minorities are treated in the workplace.

Among the survey's findings was the fact that 94 percent of white workers surveyed believe that employment practices in hiring, promotion, salaries, a safe working environment, and assignment of responsibilities are fair to all workers. Nearly half of African-American workers, and 12 percent of workers of other races, say they are not treated fairly.

"I think it shows how race is still a very powerful and contentious issue in our society," says Van Horn, who says that the center's website has registered 15,000 downloads of the free report since it came out in mid-January.

"I think there is a momentum for change," he says. "To me, the pace is frustrating. I think it's too slow."

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