The PhD Project Spotlight

"In playing ball, or in life, a person occasionally gets the opportunity to do something great. When that time comes, only two things matter: being prepared to seize the moment, and having the courage to take your best swing."

The above quote, attributed to Major League Baseball home-run king Hank Aaron, is found at the bottom of emails sent by Dr. Leyland M. Lucas, Assistant Professor of Management at Morgan State University. It certainly applies to the pursuit of a business doctorate by him and others.

The stories of many participants of The PhD Project were published recently in a book titled Living the Dream; A New Generation of Minority Business School Professors. In it, Lucas described how a professor at Howard approached him during his MBA studies and mentioned that he would make a good professor.

In his first year of doctoral studies, his advisors told him he didn’t have what it took to earn a Ph.D. and advised him to go back into the private sector.

“I used that as motivation,” Lucas said. After transferring and earning his degree with distinction at Rutgers University, he got his position at Morgan State University.

“I set very high standards for my students,” Lucas said in the book. “The harder I push them the more prepared they will be. A student came back and told me, ‘Because of what you are and what you represent, you’ve made me a better person.’”

Dr. Nichole Castater persevered through an unusually long doctoral program but emerged with her Ph.D. in International Business and Finance. Her previous career path – helping privatized companies in the former Soviet Union create business plans – led her toward a doctorate.

She said that Eastern European entrepreneurs seemed to be looking for consultants with “Ph.D.” behind their names, so she decided it was a good time to look at earning a doctorate. She said she always wanted to teach, and the Ph.D. would help her in her consulting work.

As a Native American, Castater said she has an awareness for the special needs of anyone placed outside the majority. She said that awareness makes her a better teacher.

“In some ways it makes me very sensitive to minority issues, however you want to define them.” She defined the term “minority” as something much more than race alone.

“Whether it is women – or men in some fields – or a ‘fish-out-of-water’ in a business course, it just makes me more sensitive. With my heritage, I think it’s almost second nature to see how everyone feels and not necessarily go with what the majority thinks all the time.”