College of Business's Eric Gooden Awarded $10,000 Minority Doctoral Scholarship From KPMG Foundation

Montvale, NJ. October 2011-The KPMG Foundation has awarded Eric Gooden a $10,000 KPMG Minority Accounting Doctoral Scholarship to pursue his doctorate at Florida State University’s College of Business. The scholarship, renewed for the 2011-2012 academic year, is renewable for up to five years at $10,000 a year.

Since 1994, the KPMG Foundation has awarded over $10 million to 297African-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, 194 of those scholarship recipients have successfully completed their doctoral program and are professors at universities throughout the country. Furthermore, 72 minorities are currently enrolled in accounting doctoral programs, and will take a place at the front of the classroom over the next few years.

Mr. Gooden began his doctoral studies at the Florida State University in 2007. Bernard J. Milano, President of the KPMG Foundation, believes Mr. Gooden “has demonstrated that dedication, hard work and ambition pay off. Like all our scholarship recipients he is key to our country’s future and we look forward to following his 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 1,084. 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 2011, 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.