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IU's new "Faculty for the Future" scholarships to increase minority business professors nationwide
Oct. 6, 1999
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A new scholarship program being established today (Oct. 6) at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business will combine the school's resources with those from the General Electric Fund to increase the number of ethnic minorities who go on to become tenured business faculty at colleges and universities nationwide.
The Kelley School is providing $302,000 over the next five years, in addition to $150,000 that the GE Fund is giving as seed money for the Faculty for the Future initiative, which includes identifying, selecting and recruiting qualified candidates of color for enrollment in one of its nine doctoral programs in business.
Bolstering the number of minority faculty at business schools is a national issue. Only 3.2 percent of the full-time faculty at U.S. schools of business are African Americans, 1.3 percent are Hispanic and fewer than 0.5 percent are American Indians. The American Council on Education recently reported that persons of color account for only 12.9 percent of the nation's full-time faculty as a whole and just 9.6 percent of full professors.
Today, minority students account for 7 percent of undergraduate students, 10 percent of graduate students, and 7 percent of doctoral students in the Kelley School.
"This grant from the GE Fund goes beyond bringing students of color into the doctoral programs at the Kelley School. It creates positive role models for undergraduate and graduate business students at business schools across the country for generations to come," said Dean Dan Dalton.
The GE Fund continues to be very committed to supporting higher education and to fostering greater diversity in faculty ranks, said Susan P. Peters, GE Appliances vice president-human resources and a member of the Kelley School's Dean's Advisory Council.
"GE and Indiana University have a great relationship that works because of the school's tremendous focus on quality education," Peters said. "GE recruits the best graduates from IU because they have the knowledge and drive that we need to grow competitively around the globe."
The Kelley School will use the funds to award research and teaching fellowships to undergraduate minority students, who will work with current faculty members on grant proposals and be encouraged to consider careers in academia. Funds also will be used by doctoral students for forgivable loans, teaching and research assistantships, and teaching and research expenses when they obtain faculty positions at colleges or universities after graduation.
Janet Near, the Dale M. Coleman Professor of Management and current chair of doctoral programs at the Kelley School, will administer the grant with James Wimbush, incoming chair of doctoral programs.
This is the most recent gift from the GE Fund in support of fostering greater diversity at the Kelley School. For many years, the GE Fund has provided undergraduate scholarships and has been a member of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, helping to increase the number of ethnic minorities enrolled in MBA programs.
The GE Fund is the philanthropic arm of the General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). GE Appliance officials from the Bloomington operation were on hand to participate in the announcement.
IU's Kelley School of Business offers undergraduate and graduate education programs to approximately 4,600 full-time students on its Bloomington campus and approximately 1,200 students on its Indianapolis campus. For more than 75 years, the Kelley School has stood at the forefront of curriculum innovation in management education. U.S. News & World Report ranks its full-time undergraduate program among the nation's top 10, and Business Week ranks its full-time MBA program among the top 25. For more information, call 812-855-8100 or visit the Kelley School's Web site at http://www.kelley.iu.edu
(George Vlahakis, 812-855-0846, gvlahaki@indiana.edu or Terry Dunn, GE, 502-452-7133, terry.dunn@appl.ge.com)