Undergrad Business School at Cornell Soon?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
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<p>JCAS -- </p>

<p>I don't think the Hotel School will give up it's independence anytime soon. (Believe me, there's no academic unit more independent at Cornell than the Hotel School).</p>

<p>But I do think what may happen is that the Hotel School, Johnson School, and AEM may end up all reporting to a vice-provost for business which would help to coordinate new hires and courses across the colleges.</p>

<p>Let's also be careful not to gloat about the #4 business ranking all that much. It's only a number, and while I think most people would place Cornell's business offerings among the top 15 in the country, it still has a way to go.</p>

<p>Interesting to hear that it is Ernst & Young paving the way for the Accounting program. Any other gossip stemming out of the more pre-professional quarters of campus these days?</p>

<p>The big question is what to do with ILR and PAM to ensure their integrity and that they just don't become backdoor business programs.</p>

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<p>Yes, I am lumping all the nat res, biometry, nutrition, food science, landscape architecture, earth science, etc etc into “actual Ag students” The bio majors interested in research/field work are included as well. And I agree that comm. is an odd-ball. </p>

<p>It would be politically difficult to put AEM into the Johnson school, mostly because of NY parents wanting the tuition discount and CALS wanting the money. I haven’t read the college’s mission statement recently, but I don’t see how the current AEM fits into the fields of agriculture or life science. I don’t think Liberty Hyde Bailey would approve. </p>

<p>I remember reading about a similar consolidation, 50 years ago or something, where general classes like biology and economics were taught with different courses in different colleges until they made only one general biology course across the whole university and one micro/macroeconomics. So not exactly the same thing, but similar. </p>

<p>As I see, people abuse Cornell’s Ivy League reputation. An undergrad could get the best education in the nation in agribusiness, but instead, they use it (and Cornell’s name) to go into finance. They could get the best education in agriculture (or food science, or nutrition, or…. , but they use it to go to med-school. Likewise for the ILR, students seem more interested in getting into law school than working with labor issues. Don’t get me wrong, business, medical school, and law school are all very respectable paths, and have a place at Cornell, but I think they are hurting other programs that are the top in their field but do not have the prestige of medicine, or law, etc. </p>

<p>And no, I haven’t heard any concrete evidence about Cornell actually doing this. But it seems like a lot of students, both AEM and non-AEM, are for it. And I bet a lot of faculty are for it as well. </p>

<p>I was just kidding about Wee Stinky Glen.</p>

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<p>Cornell's accredited undergraduate business program is in CALS and is staying in CALS. When it is named, it will be the "such and such" business program within CALS. It will not be "moved" into the Johnson School. The Johnson Family are EXTREMELY generous donors to Cornell, but having the undergraduate program named after them would involve giving more funds to name the program. It's not about "moving" a program into the graduate school - it's a separate naming opportunity.</p>

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<p>"The big question is what to do with ILR and PAM to ensure their integrity and that they just don't become backdoor business programs."</p>

<p>Agreed 100%. I hope the folks in Ives Hall are anticipating this and know what to do (is there still a plan to rename "The ILR School" into something else, or was that just a rumor?).</p>

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<p>I am not saying what will/will not happen, I'm saying what I think should happen. By "moving," I mean the Johnson school should start accepting undergraduates and AEM should end its business concentrations, and be only applied economics, agricultural economics, environmental and resource economics, and development economics. It wouldn't be called AEM, it would just assume the name of the Johnson school. All the lecturers in AEM could become Johnson school faculty. There wouldn't have to be any big naming donors, except for possibly an addition onto Sage.</p>

<p>And is it just me, or is PAM the least respectable major at Cornell? I mean when econ classes are too hard, you take AEM classes, and when AEM classes are too hard, you take PAM classes. It just seems like it has nothing going for it.</p>

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<p>Tahoe -- </p>

<p>I have heard that there are very preliminary discussions about how the University might eventually move AEM out of CALS. I agree that it will probably not end up under the auspices of the Johnson School or the Johnson name. But I hope that you agree with me that AEM is already basically functioning as an individual school within CALS, and that there should probably be more coordination in faculty hires and course offerings across the Hotel, Johnson, and AEM units.</p>

<p>A lot of this hinges on Cornell's relationship with New York State and when might be an ideal time to reconsider the structure of Cornell's statutory units. The coming budget crunch appears to be an appropriate time.</p>

<p>Diehldun -- It will be very interesting to see who the next provost is for this very reason. </p>

<p>I'm not a trustee, and even the trustees I am friendly with are in no position to have any sort of influence on these matters. Sometimes I wish I had $1B I could bequest to Cornell and say: "make it be so".</p>

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<p>
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And is it just me, or is PAM the least respectable major at Cornell? I mean when econ classes are too hard, you take AEM classes, and when AEM classes are too hard, you take PAM classes. It just seems like it has nothing going for it.

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<p>Where's Rendeli when you need him? Rendeli will go on and on about the idiocy of PAM courses. I always thought them to be on the same level as ILRLE courses, but apparently they are much easier. I was always impressed by the fact that they had to learn Stata and their second semester stats class was a bona fide econometrics course. Maybe this has changed though. I've certainly lost a lot of respect for ILR for dropping ST212 as well.</p>

<p>And every single economics course at Cornell should be calculus based. End of story.</p>

<p>But then again, I only took one PAM course. And it was graduate level with Cawley, who was very good. I know one PAM major who is currently getting his PhD at Harvard in a quantitative discipline, and a bunch who got into great law schools.</p>

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<p>CayugaRed - I think in a previous post your wrote about AEM being a "fiefdom", but that holds true for many of the programs at Cornell - like it or not, that's the culture. I'm an involved alumnus in CALS - your idea is decent - along the idea of the articulation in the biology major across the university (which took years to iron out), but I never hear about your idea being a priority. All of the programs you mentioned are operating well, as compared to biology which needed some straightening out. Right now, the university's priorities are the campaign and attracting top professors across the university as they are expecting many retirements in the near future.</p>

<p>EnviroGuy - I get it, it's your "wish list" for Cornell.</p>

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<p>And in regards to the ILR School being renamed, I don't think so. I know the issue came up in the mid-90s and neither industry nor labor wanted their names removed the school's name. </p>

<p>Kind of like how Agriculture will never be removed from CALS's name, even though a much better name for the school would be the College of Earth and Life Sciences.</p>

<p>Besides, what would you call the ILR School? The School of Political and Social Economy? The School of Human Resources? Neither of those would go over particularly well with certain constituencies.</p>

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<p>Tahoe -- I think we are eye to eye in everything you are saying. The "early discussions" I referred didn't come from a higher up in the administration, true, but you would have to be naive if it isn't on a lot of people's minds, just as it is ours. And they are just discussions, not plans.</p>

<p>The fundamental issue is that AEM has developed into a somewhat interesting conundrum for both CALS and the University. In many ways, its explosion in popularity among undergraduates have really helped to bolster the program's faculty and research standing. (And let's not kid ourselves, over 80 percent of the faculty is still heavily grounded in agricultural, resource, or environmental economics and is definitely world class in this regard.) It also has helped the University's undergraduate reputation as well, even if the #4 ranking in BusinessWeek is a bit baffling. I think you would agree that it is among the top 10 to 15 undergraduate business programs in the country in terms of student quality, undergraduate education, and career outcomes, but most wouldn't consider it in the top five.</p>

<p>But in other ways it causes a lot of tension on campus -- both within the Ag School as students (or alums... EnviroGuy... what are you?) express disdain for peers in their school who have absolutely no interest in the earth or life sciences, as well as within other units like ILR, PAM, Hotel, and the Johnson School. I don't think ILR is too happy when every year a handful of entering freshmen have already made up their mind that they are transferring to AEM.</p>

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<p>I don't want to get into an online discussion about certain topics, nor do I want to incite flamers. I'm sure we could have a great discussion about your points, but since I don't do PM, we're limited to this board. </p>

<p>Regarding your last statement, I agree... and I hope admissions can do their best to weed those applicants out. The "back door" strategy of admissions happens at many schools though. Just this year I heard about students transferring from:</p>

<p>Penn CAS >Wharton
NYU Steinhardt>CAS
Syracuse A&S>Newhouse
Syracuse HumEC>A&S
WUSTL Engineering>A&S
Columbia Engineering >Columbia College</p>

<p>All of the students that I mentioned planned on applying where their odds were better at admissions with the idea of transferring internally. I worry about the integrity of students today.</p>

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<p>
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Kind of like how Agriculture will never be removed from CALS's name, even though a much better name for the school would be the College of Earth and Life Sciences.

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<p>loooolllllllllllll. that's seriously like the best idea for CALS i've ever heard. </p>

<p>and AEM is like the best thing that happened to Cornell in most recent years. </p>

<p>i really look forward to how AEM program evolves within next few years. i never expected the program would get this popular just 4 years ago. even though ranking is just a number game, i hope it does well in coming years.</p>

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<p>
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I worry about the integrity of students today.

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<p>I worry about a lot of things.</p>

<p>But I agree, we probably shouldn't go down this road in a public forum.</p>