Displaying the magnificence and grace of 1874 Victorian landmark outside, Sage Hall -- the new home of the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University -- is, inside, a state-of-the-art, fully networked management education center, with every classroom seat, study carrel, office and laboratory wired and ready for the 21st century.

With the $38.2 million renovation now complete, the Johnson School is celebrating its new home Friday and Saturday, Oct. 2-3, with a dedication ceremony and a full roster of events.

Highlights include a donor recognition ceremony; an audiovisual presentation, "History of the Johnson School," followed by a panel discussion by four former deans of the college; and the dedication of Sage Hall, featuring Cornell President Hunter Rawlings and Johnson School Dean Robert J. Swieringa. These events are by invitation only due to space limitations.

Other events will include Johnson School student presentations on entrepreneurship, the semester-in-manufacturing and finance immersion; case discussions of mixed faculty/student teams problem-solving specific business cases; and panel discussions by alumni and other business executives on "Leading the Global Organization," "The Impact of Technological Change on Corporate Strategy," "The New Euro's Effect on Global Finance," "The Architecture and History of Sage Hall" and "Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of Excess."

Among the notable visitors taking part will be Alan Chimacoff, B.Arch. '64, principal, The Hillier Group (the lead architect for the project); Herbert F. Aspbury, regional executive, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Chase Manhattan; Richard A. Marin, BA '75, MBA '76, senior managing director, Bankers Trust; Byron Grote, Ph.D. '81, group chief of staff, British Petroleum; Gayle Kosterman, vice president for human resources, S.C. Johnson & Son; Daniel R. Hesse, MBA '77, president & CEO, AT&T Wireless Services.

The extensive Sage Hall renovations not only provide the Johnson School with 60 percent more space than the school's former home, Malott Hall, but also with more than 1,000 computer ports and 100,000 feet of fiber-optic cable, which gives the school access to the latest technology and allows such features as a state-of-the-art trading center, which provides live data from world financial markets, and classrooms that are wired for two-way distance learning, with cameras, projectors, network feeds and phone lines. Printers, scanners and digital cameras are available for faculty, student and staff use.

In addition, the renovated Sage Hall features an executive education center, dining hall, eight amphitheater classrooms, 25 team project rooms, a library, a negotiations laboratory, video-conferencing facilities and multimedia digital video editing and computing facilities that link the school with corporate partners and alumni around the world.

"The technology allows all kinds of curricular innovation, such as 'immersion' learning," says Swieringa. "Immersion learning, for example, allows classes to interact live with practitioners in the real worlds of manufacturing, brand management, investment banking and corporate finance on a continual basis. This gives students constant exposure to businesses and the real-time complexity, time pressures and standards executives experience on a daily basis."

For more information on the dedication ceremonies, visit the Johnson School's web site on the event at http://www.gsm.cornell.edu/alum/dedication1023.html.