The nature of SHA was in large part the creation of professor
Howard B. Meek. He was supported in his efforts by New York City hotel men, a number of whom testified in
Albany, urging the legislature to appropriate $11,000 per year for the school. Edward M. Tierney of the
Ansonia Hotel stated "There is a dearth of competent hotel , and such a course at Cornell would have the endorsement and co-operation of the hotel men generally throughout the country... The war brought a great change in the hotel worker, and the old-time attitude of servility has been replaced by efficient service giving and courtesy. Young men now enter the hotel business just as they would banking, railroad, or commercial life, to find a future in it, and the hotel man must offer the same attractions of commensurate pay and advancement." In 1927, at the 2nd Annual
Hotel Ezra Cornell, Meek convinced a skeptical
Ellsworth Milton Statler of the value of the concept; Statler declared "I'm converted. Meek can have any damn thing he wants." Statler and his wife became major benefactors of the school, eventually donating a total of more than $10 million. In 1950, the school was transformed from being a part of, Cornell's School of Home Economics (now the School of Human Ecology), a
statutory college, into becoming a separate, endowed unit of Cornell. In 1948, the Statler Foundation funded the construction of a 50-room Statler Inn and the adjoining class-room building called Statler Hall. The building also housed Cornell's faculty club. The 750-seat Alice Statler Auditorium was added to the southern end in 1956. In 1986, the original Statler Inn was torn down and replaced with the current 150-room Statler Hotel & J. Willard Marriott Executive Education Center. The Statler Hotel underwent another renovation in 2006 and now has 153 guest rooms. The Statler Hotel is the only hotel on campus. On January 28, 2016, the Cornell Board of Trustees authorized the design and implementation of a plan for a Cornell College of Business, comprising the university's three exceptional accredited business schools: the Nolan School of Hotel Administration (SHA), the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management (Dyson), and the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management (Johnson). The new Cornell College of Business began enrollment in the fall of 2016. ==Profile==