There’s a whooshing sound around the studio. Today marks the last day of the first year of the inaugural class in SVA’s MFA in Interaction Design program. Seventeen students have learned, prototyped, researched, ridden, toasted, whiteboarded, presented, stretched, and designed their way through the first year of the new program. Final presentations are this evening that will culminate the year’s work.
We design for others. Whether we have one person in mind or many, we consider those other than ourselves — something larger than ourself — to make meaning. To do the things we do. This program was once mine, a construct, as I sat creating it, considering the curriculum, the faculty, the requisite parts. Yet over the course of a year, I’ve been honored to watch it become theirs.
See also:
School Day 1.0, where we started
The faculty members who stayed late into evenings and on weekends, teaching and learning with the graduate students. The guest lecturers who traveled from around the world to share their practice with a group of young designers. The loyal staff members who, in fact, make everything possible.
Most of all, the bright minds of 17 designers who, in fact, are the very ones who now own the program. This program belongs to them and has taken shape by their philosophies, their tremendous insights, and the social change they’ve affected both on the culture of the studio and the dynamic of world at large.
I’m honored to have been a witness to their masterful minds at work and even more proud to give the program over to them. Congratulations to all and happy summer.
