ALLIANCE PROVIDES MINORITIES A CHANCE AT PROFESSORSHIPS.

Byline: Diane E. Lewis The Boston Globe

Peter J. Aranda was earning a six-figure salary as vice president of operations for the subsidiary of an entertainment conglomerate when he received an unusual offer: the opportunity to earn a doctoral degree, mentor minority graduate students and spend more time with his wife and 6-year-old son.

Aranda, who already holds two master's degrees from Washington University in St. Louis, jumped at the chance. He quit his job and moved his family from Northern California to New York City. Last fall, he entered Columbia University and began work on a doctorate in business administration. The recipient of a full fellowship, he is focusing on business strategy.

``Acquiring a doctorate and finding a way to give something back to young people had always been an aspiration of mine,'' says Aranda, 36. ``But I also wanted to . . . spend more time at home.''

This year, a consortium of U.S. firms will woo some 200 African-American, Latino and Asian business professionals who are at or near the pinnacle of their careers and willing to trade top jobs for doctorates in business, the title of professor and the promise of greater flexibility.

Called the ``PhD Project,'' the multimillion-dollar initiative was put in motion in 1993 by a partner at the accounting firm of KPMG Peat Marwick. It has grown to include dozens of major firms, including Ford Motor Co., Texaco and Citicorp.

Of the 107 U.S. universities with doctoral programs in business, 84 - including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - have agreed to provide financial backing for fellowships, scholarships and grants.

``Corporations are spending a tremendous amount of money on diversity training and awareness, and one reason is that the people we are hiring are coming from a nondiversified or white environment,'' says Bernard J. Milano, executive director of the KPMG Foundation in Montvale, N.J. ``But if you have diverse faculty at business schools, you attract more minorities into business and you also better prepare all students to work in a multiracial environment.''

Supporters also are counting on the initiative to increase the number of doctoral candidates and, eventually, minority professors at American business schools, where faculty is predominantly white.

Between 1984 and 1993, close to 6,300 people were awarded doctoral degrees in finance, management, marketing, accounting and other areas of business, according to the National Research Council in Washington. Of those, 2.4 percent were African-American, 2.3 percent were Asian, 1.3 percent were Latino and 0.4 percent were American Indians.

To be sure, skeptics question an initiative that aims to increase minority representation in the upper echelons of the business world by encouraging the defection of professionals who are just a step away from cracking the glass ceiling.

``No one has any idea that a black or Latino person going through business school with a black or Latino mentor is going to have a better orientation toward commercial success than someone else,'' says Lee Pomeroy, a principal at Egon Zehnder International, a New York-based management consulting firm. ``But one thing is for sure, you've taken a hotshot off the commercial track.''

``The whole idea of creating a talent pool should be done much earlier,'' says Paul Bracy, co-founder of Collaborative Strategies, a Boston consulting firm that specializes in diversity training. ``Investments should be made in younger students who are just preparing for careers. That way you bring them into corporations as interns. The student develops a history with the firm, and the company has the opportunity to develop a history of supporting the creation of a diverse work force.''

Milan of the PhD Project maintains that many of the executives recruited thus far were at critical points in their careers. Tired of leading fast-paced lives, they were seeking greater personal satisfaction, less stress and more time for themselves or their families.

In fact, one African-American professional who begins doctoral studies at the University of Texas this fall said he decided to go back to school after taking what he calls the 80-year test: When he is 80 and looks back at his life, what will he have accomplished?

``The vast majority of people we've recruited had found that working in corporate America was not necessarily fulfilling for them,'' notes Milano.