Right now I’m sitting in the foyer of Sage Hall on the Cornell campus. Sage Hall holds a lot of meaning for me for several reasons. To begin with I was part of the Advisory Council of the business school that decided that the business school should be relocated from Mallot Hall, where I went to the school, to Sage Hall, which is at the center of the Cornell campus. Sage Hall at Cornell University has a fascinating history spanning nearly 150 years. It was built in 1875 and originally designed as a residential building. The building was made possible by Ithaca businessman Henry W. Sage, who donated $250,000 for its construction. “When you are ready to carry out the idea of educating young women as thoroughly as young men,” Sage told his friend Ezra Cornell in 1868, “I will provide the endowment to enable you to do so.” The need for the building was urgent even though women had previously enrolled in Cornell as early as 1870. But the absence of a women’s dormitory was problematic in attracting and retaining female students. Construction began on Sage Hall in 1872 under the guidance of Professor Charles Babcock, Cornell’s first professor of architecture. In 1875, Sage College welcomed 25 female students, making the university a pioneer in coeducation and attracting many applications. For the record, my mother benefited from this by matriculating in 1934 at the ripe age of 16 and coming from nearby Lansing High School. That all seems particularly important these days when you realize how women are now dominating the student rolls in almost all disciplines. The building featured not just dormitory rooms but also a dining hall and even an impressive greenhouse in which the university conducted botany classes.
Notable early graduates included two college presidents, Julia Josephine Thomas Irvine (Wellesley) and Martha Carey Thomas (Bryn Mawr); a prominent women’s suffragist, Harriet May Mills; a publisher and author, Ruth Putnam; and the noted Cornell professor and scientist, Anna Botsford Comstock…not to mention dear old Mom in 1937.
The building hosted significant figures in the women’s suffrage movement. On Saturday, February 26, 1881, Matilda Joslyn Gage lectured on the topic “Woman Suffrage” in the Botanical Lecture Room of Sage College. Later, on Wednesday, November 14, 1894, suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw toured the nearby Cornell University campus and dined at Sage College.
Sage College and the nearby Sage Chapel were both designed in a similar Gothic style influenced by the teachings of John Ruskin. Both buildings were completed in 1875. The central tower was removed in 1950. The 1994–1995 school year was the last in which Sage housed students. Between April 1996 and August 1998, the university undertook a renovation, at the cost of $38 million, to convert the building into the new home for the Johnson Graduate School of Management. This controversial renovation “melon-balled” the structure, completely replacing the dilapidated interior while retaining the historic brick exterior walls. I was one of the fundraising leaders for the project and have my name (as well as my mother’s) on a number of its rooms and halls. I cannot honestly say very well remember watching from Statler as that rebuilding was underway.
The building stands as a testament to Cornell’s pioneering role in coeducation and its commitment to preserving architectural heritage while adapting to contemporary needs. But in addition to all of that, the name Sage has several meanings depending on the context. Sage (Salvia officinalis) is a culinary and medicinal herb in the mint family. It has grayish-green (the color used in the architectural highlights on the current building), velvety leaves with a strong, earthy flavor that’s slightly bitter and aromatic. It’s commonly used in cooking, especially with poultry, pork, and in stuffing. Sage also has a long history in traditional medicine and was once called “sacred herb” by the Romans. A sage also refers to someone who is profoundly wise, especially through experience and reflection. Historically, sages were revered teachers, philosophers, or spiritual guides known for their deep understanding of life and human nature. That makes it an appropriate name for a building at a center for higher education. In a spiritual/cultural contexts, Sage (particularly white sage) is burned in smudging ceremonies in various Indigenous traditions for purification and spiritual cleansing. And in the most modern meaning, Sage is also an open-source mathematics software system that combines various mathematical tools and libraries.
Sage Hall is where I was inducted into the Hall of Honor of the Johnson School in a ceremony held in the large indoor atrium at its center. I am still one of only 16 bronze faces that adorn that wall at the western entry (note that only seven of us on that wall are alive with only two of those being older than me). My oldest son Roger worked as the events organizer for the Johnson School for a while and did his job mostly in the midst of Sage Hall. My daughter Carolyn was married on campus with the ceremony at Sage Chapel and the reception right there in the Atrium of Sage Hall. I spent fully ten years commuting weekly up to Ithaca to teach classes in Sage Hall and kept an office there on the third floor during that time. And, finally, it was in the Atrium of Sage Hall that I met with my youngest son, Thomas, every Monday during his years on the Hill to discuss life at Cornell and ultimately to convince him that transitioning a friendship relationship with his freshman buddy Jenna into a romantic relationship would be a wise move. They are happily married at his point. To say I know Sage Hall and Sage Hall knows me would be an understatement.
I have no particular reason for being in Sage today other than to sit and wait to cross the street for a meeting with the Dean of the Business College, the entity which now manages the business schools of Cornell, including the Hotel School. From where I am siting I can see down a hallway where I made a major donation just last year to a suite of offices being named in honor of my favorite Cornellian, Joe Thomas, who was my first business school professor and the Dean of the school when I was invited to become a Clinical Professor there many years later. Those offices are the Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Leadership, which, in light of the current political and cultural moment, makes me feel good about the donation.
As I sit there, a fellow reunioning woman strikes up a conversation with me. It only takes a few minutes for me to realize that while this may have been a reunion member of the Class of ‘07 as her button indicated, she was also a few degrees off top dead center. She ranted on and on about not being allowed to do this or do that both while a student and also now as an alumnus. I later found out from a school official that this is a troubled woman who has been plaguing the central campus for several weeks. While we must tolerate all kinds in life, I am not sure that the diversity concepts were intended to capture this much diversity. It all served as a reminder that the world is a big wide and wonderful place and that it takes all kinds to fill it to its most interesting level. We head back to NYC this morning to fly home to San Diego. It’s been a long and good trek across the continents and across time and has ranged from the brilliant to the crazy, but that’s what travelling has become to me, so it all seems in keeping.