Broadening Our Horizons

Earlier this summer, I attended the Cornell Global Forum on Sustainable Enterprise, hosted in New York City by the Johnson School and our Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise along with the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future. Conceived by Professor Stuart Hart, the event brought together 100 global pioneers in clean technology and base of the pyramid business development to focus on the "Great Convergence" — the intersection of those two areas. Following two days of working sessions, the forum's culminating event brought together leaders in sustainability — the Honorable Al Gore, alumnus Fisk Johnson, CEO and chairman, S. C. Johnson & Son, Ratan Tata '59, chairman of the Tata Group, and Stuart Hart — in a panel discussion moderated by Charlie Rose.

The Global Forum stands as evidence that we are continuing to do exciting things in spite of these difficult economic times.

We are increasing our emphasis on global curriculum and programming in other ways. We have hired two full professors who have expertise in management and financial aspects of global business. In addition to classroom courses, we offered students global study trips to China, Eastern Europe, Colombia, Japan, and Korea. The trip to Colombia, led by Associate Professor Wes Sine, was an outstanding success: Johnson School students partnered on consulting projects and had unprecedented access to business and political leaders, including Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos. Many students also participated in career treks to London, Hong Kong, and Dubai.

I enjoyed engaging with many of you during my travels this past year in U.S. cities and in London, Brussels, Paris, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo. The London event, held in the British Museum, drew well over 300 people. It was the largest Cornell alumni event held outside the U.S. More than 200 people came to applaud alumni leaders and listen to Professor Hal Bierman speak at the Johnson School's Alumni Awards event in New York City.

I am grateful to our alumni for your ongoing involvement and support of the school, especially in these difficult times. Along with the rest of Cornell and many people and organizations throughout the world, we face financial constraints this year, and job placement has been challenging. Many alumni have helped by mentoring students through our new JS-Pals and JS-Coaches programs, participating in recruiting efforts, sending us job postings, and hiring new graduates as consultants through our MBA Project Initiative. We deeply appreciate your input and involvement.

There is a lot of good news. Our applications continue to be strong, and the incoming students in all of our programs are outstanding. Our student-managed Cayuga Fund posted a positive return in 2008: 0.42 percent, compared to -25.5 percent for the HFR Equity Hedge Index. A group of students added to our suite of student-managed consulting services with the creation of BR MicroCapital Two MBA/MD students launched the Cornell Business & Medicine Symposium, held at Weill Cornell Medical College and broadcast to Sage Hall.

Many of you have vivid memories of our stellar faculty. Knowing you still will enjoy learning from them, we launched Thought Leadership@Cornell, a new, quarterly e-newsletter focused on faculty research.

We are confident that the coming year will be exciting. In May, we graduated 3 PhDs and over 450 MBAs from our four programs. Already, we have welcomed a new class of Accelerated MBA students, our Executive MBAs will arrive soon, and we look forward to welcoming another outstanding class of two-year MBAs later this summer.

As always, stay in touch with news about yourself and your ideas for us.

L. Joseph Thomas
Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean

• Features
• |
• Web Extras
• |
• Inside Johnson
• |
• Departments