The Takeaway: During a crisis, there is no optimal answer, and leaders must often make decisions with imperfect information. Being flexible and gathering the inputs of knowledgeable people across specialties to come up with creative solutions can help with decision-making.
Andrew Karolyi, MBA ’87, PhD ’89
Charles Field Knight Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business in Ithaca, New York, and Harold Bierman Jr. Distinguished Professor of Management at Cornell University
The Challenge: How does a university combine different schools under the umbrella of an integrated single college in a way that sets up the university for future growth while still maintaining the uniqueness of each school and strengthening the quality of its education?
The Solution: In 2016, Cornell integrated its three accredited business schools under one governing infrastructure within six months, merging the School of Hotel Administration and the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management into the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.
The plan at the time was to build on the individual programs’ strengths and foster more learning and research opportunities for future growth and development. It happened quickly, and the lack of faculty and staff input before the announcement led to resistance to the change.
Five years later, the stress caused by the rapid integration had left its mark on the combined business college, with heavy turnover at the top levels. In 2021, Karolyi was named the fourth dean of Cornell’s college of business and was charged by the university’s provost with creating a task force to address the many lingering concerns from the integration. Among the key issues to work out: the role of the individual school deans as opposed to the college dean, the responsibilities of the schools versus the college, budget responsibilities, and curriculum development.
Karolyi’s task force spent eight months listening to more than 200 voices in Cornell’s community, discussing the challenges its members faced, and often hearing emotional and passionate viewpoints.
“There’s more resistance to change in higher education because there is more anxiety about the potential loss of the legacy, and in our case, with the transition, their contributions in their respective schools, of which they were rightfully very proud,” he says.
The process eventually led to a 100-page report that included 35 recommendations, with Cornell’s top leadership endorsing the plans in October 2021.
Among other changes, Karolyi and his team centralized the budget structure, strengthened the alignment of faculty across schools along disciplinary lines, and better integrated support functions, like finance and administration, across schools. Recently, the college decided to close one of its two one-year MBA programs, to launch a new department of real estate, and to build in a focus of sustainability across all three schools.
Although it took significant effort to work out the lasting issues, Cornell’s combined business college is now on the right footing, Karolyi says, pointing to successes including the college having its best fundraising year, students applying in large numbers, and the hiring of 21 faculty members last year. The college of business now has 250 faculty members, 485 staff, and 4,100-plus students.
“The positive momentum we’re experiencing now as a college is because we spent the time listening to our community,” Karolyi says.