The Wisdom of Sage
I joined the Advisory Council of the Johnson Graduate School of Management (JGSM) in 1990. That Council was used to engage successful alumni of the school such that they would become part of the leadership group for the school, both in terms of policy decision-making and, most importantly, in fundraising (both direct and indirect). That invitation to join the Council came as a direct result of my appointment as the Chairman and CEO of BT Bank of Canada, the “Schedule B” bank of Bankers Trust. Someone in the school’s development office decided that I was a Wall Street rising star and should be added to the Advisory Council roster, so they extended the offer, which I quickly accepted. I wanted to be quick, least the school figure out that the Canadian assignment was a demotion brought on by an error of omission where a large loan loss had hit one of my business units and I had been unable to avert it. In reality, the Canadian operation had been one small part of a much bigger global business array for which I had been responsible.
As the Advisory Council went about its regular meetings, one of the key topics in those days of the early 90’s was that the school was constrained by its physical building, which was Malott Hall, the building in which I had been a student. Malott was built in 1963, specifically to house the growing business school, which had previously resided in McGraw Hall on the Arts Quad in the midst of the University’s largest academic unit, The College of Arts and Sciences (from which I had graduated with my BA in 1975). Malott Hall had been added to after ten years of service, during my tenure in the school, but it was still not enough and the footprint of its lot at the corner of Tower Road and Garden Avenue, a block away from the center of campus, defined as the central administration building, Day Hall, was simply too small to accommodate an even larger building economically. Therefore, two more decades later, the school was looking for a spot on campus to build a new business school. The Advisory Council, which was led at he time by Sam Johnson, the billionaire leader of the Johnson Wax Company of Racine, Wisconsin, who had given $23 million to the school the prior decade, chaired the Advisory Council. The Johnson family is a big Cornell family with several buildings carrying their name, but now had their name on a major business school. To say that Sam had some serious clout on University major decisions is an understatement. As a result, the Advisory Council was intimately involved in the decision on a new building. The various property choices offered to the business school by the Cornell Real Estate Department ranged from distant parcels of raw land at the fringe of campus (where we could build almost anything our business school hearts desired), to the renovation of this old, historical building one half block from the epicenter of the University, a building bearing the name of its 1875 benefactor and local developer, Henry W. Sage. It cost almost twice as much to renovate as opposed to a new build, but the central location drove us collectively to choose to make Sage Hall the home of the business school.
The newly renovated Sage Hall opened to the business students in 1998. Sage Hall was built after 10 years of the founding of the University, which was the first Ivy League school to admit a woman in 1870, even though that woman had to withdraw since there were no accommodations nearby in which to “properly” house her. That spurred the building of Sage Hall to be a residential college for the women who would seek to join the Cornell student body. When it was dedicated, there was a time capsule placed in the cornerstone with a note, written by the founder of the University, Ezra Cornell. With the re-opening of Sage Hall in 1998, there was a ceremony to open and read the 123-year-old message. Given the history of the building and its original purpose of serving the female educational mandate, the ceremony was heavily populated with women’s organizations looking for a rallying point. Unfortunately for them (and somewhat humorously for the closet misogynists), the letter from Cornell focused only on the topic of the nonsectarian mandate of the University. Ezra Cornell was quite adamant on the separation of Church and State and believed that higher education needed to be nonsectarian, so the building of this fine “high” Victorian building seemed like a perfect opportunity to tout that particular mandate. He had no idea that nonsectarianism AND diversity and inclusion (including for women) would still be a big issue in the country and the world this 150 years later.
Yesterday I attended the dedication of the L. Joseph Thomas Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Leadership in the northeast corner of the ground floor of Sage Hall. As I have written about before, Joe Thomas is my favorite Cornellian. He has been at Cornell since 1967 and was a Professor of Operations Management (my first business school professor in 1975), the Ann and Elmer Lindseth Dean of JGSM (the guy who hired me and made me a Clinical Professor), and the Interim Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. To say he is a big part of the fabric of the school is an understatement. He figures he has taught 10,000 of the school’s 15,000 graduates over his years there. One of his most passionate beliefs is in the importance of Diversity, Inclusion and Leadership for the creation of the next generation of business leaders. So, it is only fitting that we gathered financial support to dedicate the Center in Joe’s name. It was great to honor Joe and his ex-faculty member wife, Marney, and attending were Bob Swieringa, Mark Nelson, Vishal Gaur and Andrew Karolyi all ex or present Deans of either JGSM or, in the case of Andrew, Dean of Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. At the dinner which followed, we were also joined by Kraig Kayser, Chairman of the Cornell Board of Trustees and Chairman of Seneca Foods.
Sage Hall has always been a special place to me. I was heavily involved in the fundraising for the building during the late 90’s and even watched the renovation as it was underway. This was a renovation of keeping the exterior skin of the building and replacing almost everything else inside and adding a few things like turning the inner courtyard into a magnificent covered atrium. It was in that atrium that my daughter Carolyn had her wedding reception (having been wed in nearby Sage Chapel). It is where my older son, Roger, worked for JGSM as the events coordinator. And it is where my youngest son, Thomas, and I sat each Monday in the years he was at Cornell and I was teaching there, to talk about life and agree that Jenna was a perfect partner for him (Jenna is now his wife). Just off the Atrium is the Hall of Honor wall where my face in bronze will presumably hang with the fifteen other members of the elite group for as long as the school resides in Sage Hall. So, to say the least, Sage Hall is an important place in my life, as it is in Joe Thomas’ life. In fact, Sage Hall was a place that my mother frequented in the 1930’s since she had lots of classmates living there even though she couldn’t afford that luxury herself. Who knows what my future holds in terms of time spent in Sage Hall, but I suspect my kids and their kids will find some connection to the place if only to put funny hats on my bronzed head to make fun of me in perpetuity. Such is the wisdom of Sage as I like to think of it.