Cornell should have kept the Hotel School independent

“I go to Cornell and I’m graduating from the college of business,” said no Hotelie ever.

For the last 94 years, Cornell has built their Hotel Administration brand up so much that we have one of the top schools of its kind, but now it will instead be lumped in with the Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management and the Johnson School of Management to create the College of Business.

I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m not even a Hotelie and I don’t like the idea of this. It’s difficult to understand why our institution would want to take a school that is one of the best of its kind and take away that recognition and that identity and lump it in under general business. OK, so we may grow to be one of the best business schools, but what about the Hotel School? You think of hospitality, you think of Cornell. I guess that won’t happen anymore? If you ask me, Hotelie has a better ring to it than Bizzie anyway.

A thing of the past

As an ILRie here at Cornell, I am not directly affected by this decision to create the College of Business. For ILRies, with our industrial and labor relations focus, it was confusing at first as to why everyone else with some semblance of business curriculum was joined under this one title; however, if you ask me, I don’t want to give up my school identity for the College of Business. And even more, how does Hotel Administration fit in as “business” any more than ILR does? (Hint: it doesn’t!)

Think about it – any time somebody tells you their friend or relative or what have you goes to Cornell, the typical follow-up question is “oh nice! What school are they in?” Within Cornell we have our seven schools. You’ve got your CALS, Arts and Sciences, ILR, Hotel Administration, Engineering, Architecture, and Hum Ec. Each of us have unique identities and stereotypes regarding the culture of our schools. We are seven separate subcultures within the giant Cornell culture.

With a decision as radical as the one to pull three different colleges into one new school, you lose the cultural aspect that has been fostered for so long in each of those environments. AEM fits in with CALS, and Hotel Administration and Johnson Graduate School of Management have their own respective cultures. Sure, the College of Business will create its own new culture, but why choose to do something that causes such upset among faculty and students?

The Facebook page, Keep Cornell Hotel School Independent should be evidence enough of the sheer gravity of student and faculty upset on campus. In the case of the Hotel Administration school especially, I have friends still in high school who want to apply to Cornell for the opportunity to get an education at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. They specifically want to apply, be welcomed, and ultimately graduate to join the amazing Hotelie network. When you apply to a school that has such a strong reputation and prestige behind its name, you do not expect to have that title erased or hidden away while you’re halfway through your education. I find it hard to believe that incoming Hotelies would be indifferent to the change in their diploma. Something tells me the College of Business emblazoned across their diploma on graduation day just doesn’t have the same appeal as the School of Hotel Administration name.

Think of the alumni too. What does this say to them about their identities as Hotelies? Does it invalidate their legitimacy if their school is tucked away behind the bigger name of the College of Business? If you graduate from the best of the best schools for your industry, think about how it looks when that all of a sudden no longer exists. The theory behind this new school is that it will strengthen each respective college once they are combined together. Honestly, what “strengthening” does the Hotel School really need? The alumni are the ones running the game in the industry. It seems like they are pretty set and don’t need much strengthening.

All in all, the College of Business seems like a rash decision by the Board of Trustees that did not take into full consideration the opinions of the students and faculty in each of the three schools they volunteered as tribute for this new college.