Johnson School history

Our history and impact

Since welcoming its first 41 students in 1946, the SC Johnson College of Business has grown from a modest postwar experiment into one of the world’s leading graduate business schools. Over nearly eight decades, it has pioneered research, broken barriers and expanded its reach, shaped at every turn by the generosity of its alumni, the ambition of its faculty and an enduring belief that business education should prepare leaders to make a meaningful difference in the world.

1946 — Dean Paul O’Leary welcomed 41 MBA students to McGraw Hall for the first day of classes at Cornell’s new School of Business and Public Administration (B&PA).

1948–1950 — Jane Knauss Stevens became the first woman to earn a Cornell MBA in 1948. Two years later, Wilbur Parker ’50 — WWII veteran and Tuskegee Airman — became the first Black Cornell MBA graduate, going on to break barriers across New Jersey’s public sector for decades.

1984 — The Cornell Graduate School of Management is renamed the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management following a $20 million gift from Sam Johnson ’50 in honor of his grandfather, founder of what is now SC Johnson.

1989 — Cornell economics professor Richard Thaler — later a 2017 Nobel Laureate — founded the Behavioral Economics Decision Research Center, an interdisciplinary center widely cited as the origin of the field.

1996–2010 — Angela Noble-Grange MBA ’94 founded the Office for Women and Minorities in Business in 1996 — later renamed the Office of Diversity and Inclusion — to attract and retain diverse students and develop inclusive leaders.

2017 — The Samuel Curtis Johnson School of Management joins the newly named Cornell SC Johnson College of Business supported by a $150 million gift from H. Fisk Johnson, ’79, MEng ’80, MS ’82, MBA ’84, PhD ’86 and SC Johnson.

2021 — The Johnson School celebrated its 75th anniversary, recognizing the scope of its impact on global business.

Expanded Cornell partnerships

Johnson launched the Cornell Tech MBA in 2014, and since 2017 the program has been based on Roosevelt Island at the Cornell Tech campus. That same year, Johnson partnered with Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences to launch the Executive MBA/MS in Healthcare Leadership, also housed at the Tata Innovation Center on the Roosevelt Island campus.