From Campus to Corporation

Refitting Ph.D.'s for the world of business

A Ph.D. in philosophy was once a oneway ticket to an ivy turret. No more. With declining college enrollments, fewer faculty openings, low starting salaries and little chance for tenure, college teaching has lost much of its allure. Even worse, a Mellon Foundation study estimated that by 1990 the U.S. will have a surplus of 60,000 Ph.D.'s in the humanities.

What are the good doctors to do? Dorothy Harrison, New York State Assistant Education Commissioner, and Ernest May, Chairman of Harvard's History Department, hit on an idea: why not refit Ph.D.'s for the business world? "Here are a group of people with highly developed analytical skills," says Harrison. "They can deal with all kinds of problems."

So they can. Last month, 50 carefully selected Ph.D.'s and A.B.D.'s (all but dissertation) completed the Careers in Business project, a unique, tuition-free program sponsored by the New York State Department of Education. The 31 men and 19 women, ages 26 to 45, spent seven weeks attending classes at the New York University School of Business Administration, just one block from Wall Street. For many of them, teachers or students until now, the crash courses in accounting, finance, economics, law and marketing were a first exposure to the world of business. Notes Randy Lewis, 31, a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, "What we've all gained is confidence."

They have also gained a foot in the corporate door. More than 50 companies have been interested in the program since its inception. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with grants from such corporations as A T & T, Exxon and General Motors, the program has established strong links between business and academe. Part of the mission has been to smash stereotypes. Says one Ph.D.: "It works both ways. Businessmen see us as people with no feet on the ground; we see them as ogres."

Both groups seem to have benefited. Each program participant has had about seven job interviews, and offers are already coming in. "They are strong person- alities with leadership qualities," observes William Machever of Sun Chemical. "This kind of wasted talent is a disaster for the United States." Adds Morton Darrow of the Prudential Insurance Co., "A corporation today needs people with a greater sensitivity to the world."

This is exactly what many humanists want to hear. Some of the Ph.D.'s plan to take hard-core business jobs, with the understanding that they will have to pick up technical skills. Others hope to bring their special perspectives to corporate decision making. "I'm interested in a company's social responsibility to its employees, its stockholders and the community," says one woman who still has a high school teaching job.

All the scholars have high aspirations. "I love teaching, but being a junior administrator and lecturer is not a viable long-term career," says George Smith, 31, a history Ph.D. who has taught at Harvard for the last two years. "We see ourselves with a taste for power and money." The project supports those goals. "We want mainstream jobs for these people in channels that will take them to the top," says Co-Director Harrison.

The alumni of the project will be followed for progress reports, partly to help in planning a second Careers in Business program for next summer. Some have regrets about giving up teaching--a few have even decided that they want to remain in academe--but most are excited about a new way of life. "It was a hard decision between an active life or a reflective life," says Peter Manolakos, 31, a candidate for a Ph.D. in philosophy at Syracuse University. "The problem is not so much leaving behind teaching as leaving behind the field." Still, he hopes to keep up his scholarship during off-hours. "After all," he notes philosophically, "Spinoza ground lenses."

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