The KPMG Foundation has awarded Sydnee Manley, a University of Arkansas graduate, a $10,000 KPMG Minority Accounting Doctoral Scholarship to pursue her doctorate at the University of Mississippi for the 2012-2013 academic year. The scholarship is renewable for up to five years.
Since 1994, the KPMG Foundation has awarded over $10 million to 309 African-American, Hispanic-American and Native American scholars pursuing doctorate degrees, as part of its ongoing commitment to increase the representation of minority students and professors in business schools. Today, 184 of those scholarship recipients have successfully completed their doctoral program and are professors at universities throughout the country. Furthermore, 74 minorities are currently enrolled in accounting doctoral programs, and will take a place at the front of the classroom over the next few years.
Before enrolling at the University of Mississippi, Manley earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas and her MBA from Georgia State. Bernard J. Milano, President of the KPMG Foundation, believes Ms. Manley “has demonstrated that dedication, hard work and ambition pay off. Like all our scholarship recipients she is a key to our country’s future and we look forward to following her success after graduation.”
The KPMG Foundation Minority Accounting Doctoral Scholarship program aims to further increase the completion rate among African-American, Hispanic-American and Native American doctoral students in accounting, and is part of a larger commitment by the KPMG Foundation to increase minority representation not only in accounting programs at colleges and universities, but in the American work force. The program complements The PhD Project, a separate 501(c) (3) organization that the KPMG Foundation founded in 1994, which recruits minority professionals from business into doctoral programs in all business disciplines. Since its inception in 1994, The PhD Project has increased the number of minority business professors from 294 to 1,158. The Project attacks the 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 diverse workforce.
KPMG Foundation
The KPMG Foundation is a 501(c)(3) private foundation. The Foundation operates on donations from KPMG LLP, the U.S. audit, tax and advisory firm. For fiscal year 2012, KPMG donated over $6.3 million to the Foundation. Through the KPMG Foundation, the firm has spent over 40 years supporting and developing programs to enhance business education.
