Traditions
creating community starts on day oneThe Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management has a strong culture of collaboration and teamwork. From year to year, Johnson students share an inclusive environment in which strong personal and professional ties are formed and developed. Through a close-knit, highly energetic, and warmly collaborative environment, Johnson creates a unique culture and experience.
Traditions are an important part of maintaining and developing this unique culture and experience. Traditions, passed along by each class, tie Johnson students together through shared experiences and memories. We want you to know about these diverse traditions and the role they play in the life of Johnson students.
Contents
Johnson Outdoor
Experience (J.O.E.)...1
Sage Social ... 2
Johnson Night Out ...3
Johnson Gives Back ... 4
Alumni Rugby Game ...5
Halloween Party ... 6
Frozen Assets vs. Faculty Game ...7
Diwali ... 8
Pie in the Face ... 9
Holiday Party ... 9 Charity Auction ...10 Frozen Assets vs. Puck Bunnies ... 11 Destination Johnson ... 11 P.ersonal S.uccess ...12 Asia Night ...12
State of the School... 13
Follies ...14
Slope Day ... 15
The Johnson Family Legacy ...16
August
Johnson Outdoor Experience (J.O.E.)
J.O.E is an overnight orientation event that provides leadership and team-building activities for first-year students at a lakeside campsite. They have the opportunity to meet one another and get to know their classmates through outdoor activities, including everything from collaborative games, a ropes course, skits, sports competitions, campfires, and much more. Second-year student volunteers facilitate the J.O.E activities and enjoy the opportunity to meet the first-year class.
Weekly on Thursdays
Sage Social
Sage Social occurs every Thursday afternoon in the atrium. These weekly receptions provide an opportunity for Johnson faculty, staff, students, and family to socialize before the start of the weekend. Sage Social is sponsored by Johnson Corporate Partners, a student organization, or a school department, and is sometimes tied to a theme or major speaker event.
Johnson Night Out brings together members of the Johnson community to enjoy an evening of good food and great company. Faculty, staff, and second-year students open their homes to host first-years for a potluck-style dinner. This casual and fun dinner provides a wonderful opportunity for first- and second-year students to mix and mingle with one another and with faculty and staff members. There is an outing held both in the fall and spring semesters.
September/April
October
Johnson Gives Back
Johnson students, faculty,and staff join together for “Into the Streets,” a day of community service in the Ithaca community. Organized by the Public Service Center, projects in previous years have involved the Cayuga Nature Center, Coddington Community Center, Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Girl Scouts, Cayuga Waterfront Trail, Women’s Community Building, Longview, and Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services.
The Johnson Rugby Club was established in 1993 and garners alumni support throughout the world. The annual Alumni Rugby Game provides Johnson alumni the opportunity to return to campus and meet current students. The game is one of the most highly attended alumni events at Johnson, and consists of a weekend of networking and fun, highlighted by a gridiron rugby match between alumni and current students.
October
October
Halloween Party
This fall event provides an opportunity for Johnson students to showcase their originality and creativity. Run by the Student Association’s student events planning committee, celebration highlights include trick-or-treating, costumes, and a live awards show.
Frozen Assets, Johnson’s Women’s Ice Hockey team, take on the faculty each year in a competition to demonstrate that although a PhD might be necessary for the classroom, it does not usually help out on the ice. This game provides Johnson students the opportunity to check their faculty, administrators, and staff into the boards! This exciting match usually warrants numerous penalties and certainly many goals.
November
November
Diwali
Diwali Night is hosted every year by the South Asian Business Society and is this organization’s biggest event of the year. A special night of celebration, students, faculty, and staff gather in the atrium for the festival of Diwali (or festival of lights) to watch or participate in a night of traditional dance, performances, fashion shows, auctions, and a great deal of wonderful Indian foods.
December
Pie-in-the-Face
December
Holiday Party
Have you secretly hoped to see a friend’s face smeared with pie? This fundraiser is your big chance. Every year, Johnson students, staff, and faculty nominate individuals to receive a pie in the face. Then people bid for the right to throw a pie in the face of their favorite (or least favorite) nominated member of the Johnson community. All proceeds from this highly attended event benefit local charities.Another favorite night among Johnson students, the annual Holiday Party is a fun-filled night of holiday celebration. This party gives students an opportunity to get dressed up and celebrate the holiday season with classmates before the start of finals and winter break.
March
Charity Auction
A day of bass fishing on Lake Cayuga, dinner with your favorite professors, yoga, tennis and golf lessons—these are just a few of the items that can be won at the Annual Charity Auction. Last year, over 90 items and services were donated by local businesses, faculty, staff, and students and were auctioned off to the Johnson community. The largest fundraiser of the year, Community Impact’s Annual Charity Auction benefits students pursuing non-profit internships and local charities.
March
Frozen Assets vs. Puck Bunnies
Destination Johnson marks the start of the unique Johnson experience, when admitted students are invited to campus for a weekend of non-stop activities. DJ participants spend the weekend getting to know future classmates, current Johnson students, Sage Hall, the Cornell campus, and the Ithaca area. Admitted students attend presentations and have abundant opportunities to ask questions about the unique qualities of the Johnson program. DJ participants learn about Immersions, academic life, financial aid, the Career Management Center, and much more. Through numerous social events and interactions with current students, faculty, and staff, admitted
April
Destination Johnson (DJ)
In the most celebrated rivalry atJohnson, the Puck Bunnies square off annually against the Frozen Assets. An all men’s team with limited skating ability and hockey experience, the Puck Bunnies hit the ice in women’s clothing, wearing everything from evening gowns to mini-skirts and a few more scandalous outfits! It’s a can’t-miss event full of laughter, exubrance, and non-stop excitement.
P.S. is a capstone event for all graduating students. It’s a day of celebration for all that the second-year students have accomplished and a chance to network and get advice from faculty, staff, and alumni before the students embark on the next stage of their careers.
April
P.S.
The Asia Business Association, Johnson Japan Club, and Korean Business
Association bring the culture and spirit of Asia to Johnson. This very special night features Asian performances and cultural experience booths as well as authentic Asian cuisine. Through this event, we enable our classmates to better understand the Asian culture and help foster a greater diversity and camaraderie within the Johnson community.
April
April
State of the School
Each year, theDean gives a State of the School address. The dean will discuss everything from contemporary issues facing the school, students, faculty, and staff, as well as his initiatives and plans for the future. The speech is highly attended and anticipated, and generally followed by a reception at Sage Social.
The Follies is the Johnson community’s annual
opportunity to laugh at itself. Business school is serious; the Follies is not. Created in 1980 by Johnson classmates Cynthia Wilson Massarsky and Barry M. Massarsky, the Follies showcases both live performances and prerecorded videos produced by students, faculty, and staff. The Follies is an end-of-the-year opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to publicly spoof all that they know and love about Johnson.
May
May
Slope Day
The last day of classes marks an annual tradition and day of celebration for the entire Cornell community. Slope Day’s origins can be traced back to 1890, when the annual Navy Ball began on the Cornell campus. It has since evolved into a day of food, drink, and music to celebrate the last day of classes. Johnson students typically wake up early for a breakfast and BBQ in Collegetown and then head to the slope to celebrate together with all of Cornell.
Cornell University’s Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, founded in 1946, defined a new mission and sharper focus in 1983 when the faculty voted to eliminate its health administration and public administration programs in order to focus exclusively on MBA education. Accordingly, they changed the school’s name to the Graduate School of Management. Implementing the new mission in a competitive marketplace, they knew, would require additional resources.
The following year, the Johnson family made a $20-million endowment gift to the school, at the time the largest such gift ever to a business school. The school was rechristened the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.
The school’s namesake, Samuel Curtis Johnson (1833-1919), began his career as a manufacturer of wooden parquet floors in Racine, Wisconsin. In 1886, he decided to extend his company’s product line into wax to care for the floors he produced. The floor-care products soon outsold the flooring, and the international consumer products firm, now known as SC Johnson, was born.
Samuel C. Johnson ’50, led his family in making the historic gift naming Cornell’s graduate business school for his great-grandfather. In a 1988 volume on the history of his family’s company, Sam wrote of his progenitor: “He held the notion that business should put back something into the communities in which they are located. He also believed that a corporation should give back something to the broader group of consumers for which it has earned profits. Providing jobs in a community, he stated, while certainly important, is simply not enough.”
The Gift that Transformed the School
Samuel C. Johnson ’50 (1928-2004)
A legendary leader, Sam Johnson was widely recognized for making the business world a better place. He was a founding member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and was appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. President’s Council on Sustainable Development in 1993. He received a Lifetime Environmental Award from the United Nations Environmental Programme and was inducted into the U.S. National Business Hall of Fame.
At Johnson, Sam’s legacy endures. He and the Johnson family are an integral part of our identity; their values and ideas shaped many of the programs and initiatives that helped transform the school.
Printed on recycled paper. Funded in part by the Student Council at Johnson. Produced by the Office of Marketing and Communications, Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, Ithaca NY. Photography by University Photography, Gene Ekster, and the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management.
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