Charles Harrington/University Photography
Red and white confetti and balloons are jettisoned from Sage Hall to mark the building's rededication Oct. 16.
In a historic and unique undertaking, Cornell officials relaid and rededicated the cornerstone of Sage Hall during an Oct. 15 ceremony. Built as a women's residence hall in the 19th century, the building is being extensively renovated to become the new home of the Johnson Graduate School of Management.
The ceremony provided the event's speakers with an opportunity to look to the future -- by talking about what the Johnson School could become -- and to remember the past -- by acknowledging the letter penned by university founder Ezra Cornell, which was uncovered when the building's cornerstone was opened last spring.
Board of Trustees Chairman Harold Tanner praised the Johnson School for its vision in selecting Sage Hall as its new home, noting that it puts the school in close proximity to the School of Hotel Administration and the College of Engineering. "[Sage Hall] will be one of the most important addresses at Cornell, and in the United States, for business education," he said.
Johnson School Dean Robert Swieringa told the more than 200 people gathered for the ceremony that the renovation of Sage Hall is "an appropriate metaphor for the Johnson School."
"As we educate those who will lead our most lasting enterprises well into the 21st century, we will take the best components of the past and combine them with the best of what the future has to offer," he said. "We will create not only a building, but an organization that is built to last. It will fall to those who next open this stone to determine how well we have succeeded."
In her remarks, alumna and MBA student Delfina M. Bisha, a chair of the school's Student-Faculty Committee and president of the second-year class, said the new Johnson School building, and what it represents to the future of business education, will give Johnson School graduates an advantage over the other 200,000 MBA graduates who enter the job market each year.
Now contained within the cornerstone, in a sealed aluminum box, are new letters from Cornell President Hunter Rawlings and trustee Ezra Cornell, a lineal descendant of the university's founder, along with various other items, including a Hewlett-Packard financial calculator, a biography of Samuel Curtis Johnson, for whom the Johnson School is named, and copies of the Cornell Daily Sun and the Cornell Chronicle.
The cornerstone also contains a copy of the original May 15, 1873, letter from university founder Ezra Cornell, removed from the cornerstone this past spring, in which he discussed the fear that sectarianism would become one of higher education's arch enemies by excluding individuals from a college education based on their religious beliefs.
In his letter, Rawlings writes of a new threat to higher education, and he read the letter at the cornerstone rededication ceremony.
"Today the threat to the university is both more subtle and more pervasive," he read. "A pragmatic public sees the university's primary task as certifying the professional competency of those to whom it awards degrees. Of diminished importance, in the view of many, are a passion for ideas and a commitment to the life of the mind, which are, in fact, the most significant qualities a great university can impart. Credentialism has replaced sectarianism as the greatest threat to higher education, and it must be resisted with equal vigor."
In his letter, Ezra Cornell, the great-great-great-grandson of the university's founder, continues to caution against sectarianism but notes that Cornell must continue to be vigilant against "dogmatism and vested interests political, governmental and private in nature." (See text of letter, below.)
Samuel C. Johnson '50, chair of S.C. Johnson & Son, also referred to as S.C. Johnson Wax, and his wife, Imogene Johnson '52, placed the aluminum box inside the cornerstone shortly before it was sealed with cement. The Johnson School, named for Johnson's great-grandfather, is expected to move into the restyled Sage Hall next spring when the $38 million renovation project -- which will provide the school with 60 percent more space and the latest technology -- is complete.
The cornerstone was first opened in March of this year after second-year MBA student Tatiana Rosak came across a mention in The History of Women at Cornell of the letter founder Ezra Cornell had placed inside the Sage Hall cornerstone during the building's dedication in 1873. The contents of that letter had remained a mystery, as Ezra Cornell had made no copy of it.
"I knew the building was being renovated, so I asked the Cornell administration whether we could open up the cornerstone and take a peek at this letter," said Rosak, who attended the cornerstone rededication.
October 15, 1997
To the coming Cornellians:
As we re-lay the cornerstone of Sage College, and mark the transition of this edifice to a new purpose, it is a privilege to add my letter to this box, alongside one written May 15, 1873 by my great, great, great grandfather. His letter recalls the basic principles that shaped his vision, the powerful ideas that created this university and set it apart from other institutions. Cornell University was and is established to oppose those with closed minds, and, by welcoming a community of scholars, to advance the boundaries of knowledge both practical and ideal.
In 1910 Edwin Slossen wrote that, as opposed to other institutions of higher learning, "we expect more of Cornell": "(It), in order to be conservative in the sense of being true to its traditions, must be radical and progressive." We have been that, and it is my challenge to future Cornellians that we continue to be true to our traditions in matters of the heart and of the mind, and that we hold firm to our belief in the supreme value of freedom of inquiry.
In addition to his iteration of what has become our motto, that Cornell should be an institution where "any person can find instruction in any study," the Founder in his letter emphasizes the paramount importance of the free pursuit of knowledge: in particular, he warns that we must protect our University from the constraints of sectarianism. To his concern, I add my caution that it is not only religious sectarianism of which we must be vigilant, but also of dogmatism and vested interests political, governmental and private in nature. In the pursuit of wisdom and new knowledge, Cornell University should provide a hearty welcome to all persons with open minds.
The Founder's liberating call to all who wish to advance understanding in all subjects has had abundant effects. It is to his faith in the freedom of the human spirit that we must rededicate ourselves. Faculty must teach and pursue their research on soil free of constraint, spoken or implied. Students must be free to follow their scholarly inclinations and best instincts as they prepare to be useful to mankind. More, Cornell must strive to provide easy access to all who wish to advance the cause of liberal learning. We must encourage our benefactors to support new ventures whose outcomes may be as unforeseeable as was the Founder's own radical educational endeavor. We, like the Founder, must trust that its friends always protect and nourish this living idea that is about people and experiences and a place we call Cornell.
Ezra Cornell
Ithaca, New York