| Cornell University, The Statler School of Business
I just want to preface this by saying that I'm a hotelie. I love the hotel school, I love being a hotelie and being able to call my classmates "hotelies". I love the traditional hospitality classes at SHA, and I'm considering concentrating in Hospitality Leadership.
However, in my time at the hotel school, it's been quite clear that a sizeable, sizeable chunk of the student body is interested in the less traditional hospitality parts of the curriculum and the more finance/real estate/management business side of the school. I myself am quite interested in these courses too, and have always been thrilled at the breadth of curriculum that we are privy to at the hotel school, really giving us the full scope of the business industry. The number of students pursuing non-hospitality related academic paths and jobs grows every year it seems; this came as no surprise to me as when I was a high schooler I remember hearing that this would be the case on college confidential. This increase in people interested in the non hospitality side of SHA has been recognized in multiple ways by the university too. The president commenting that the school was no longer a "hospitality school with an emphasis on business" but now a "business school with an emphasis on hospitality", and the recent vote to remove Restaurant Management from the hotel school core curriculum both indicate that the university acknowledges the scope of SHA's curriculum.
So I'm interested in why theres never really been any talk about possibly changing the school's name to reflect it's evolution. Cornell University, The Statler School of Business, or Cornell University, The Statler School of Business and Hospitality Administration could acknowledge the scope of diversity of interests within the student body. I know we don't actually need to do this for any practical reason, like employment. The hotel school's name is recognized far outside of the hospitality industry and in the less hospitality related facets of the business industry. I'm just curious as to why there've never been movements to do something like this, considering the university itself recognizes the school's evolution in so many other ways. I know, of course, that SHA isn't the only slightly outdated name at Cornell, so it's very possible that this is just part of Cornell tradition, but I just wanted to hear everyone's thoughts about it. It's not necessary, just interesting to think about.
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