It is an honor to assume the Chair of the Master of Interaction Design program. I am humbled and grateful for the support of Dean Helen Maria Nugent, Provost Tammy Rae Carland, Associate Provost Julie Kirgis, and Senior Manager Christine Lasher. I am thankful, too, for the support of the selection committee, student committee, faculty, staff, and students. I look forward to collaborating with the entire CCA community as we continue building a world-changing institution.
The opportunity to serve you comes during an unprecedented time – a time of tremendous social anxiety, health concerns, economic uncertainty, job loss – and I must first acknowledge the disconnect of entering a new role while tens of millions have lost theirs.
Many, if not all of us, are experiencing disruption. Beliefs and traditions upon which we built our lives and livelihoods are crumbling. New behaviors and protocols have been introduced with little preparation and without means to uphold them. The global crisis is revealing the interconnectedness and interdependencies of our systems, and how different leaders respond and react as we try, each day, to find ways to safely navigate through it.
It may feel like the world as we know it is ending. While our planet takes a breath, perhaps what is ending are our existing methods of existence.
We are constrained to turn inward now and live on the inside. We may find ourselves reflecting on this massive transition, asking: was our old world serving us all, equally? Likely not. So what’s next?
As we try to navigate this change, as we acclimate and begin to adjust, we find ways to share the experience. A chorus of neighbors sing the same song from their porches. Video calls include high fives to suggest touch. New Yorkers cheer for healthcare workers at 7 o’clock every day. Barter economies re-emerge – skill for skill, person to person. Each positive action feels like a triumph, and each sign of renewal begets hope for further regeneration.
There is and will continue to be great loss. For people, jobs, traditions, rhythms of a former life, we need ample time and space to grieve and process.
Yet as you grieve, as you process, as a designer you may find you have a parallel feeling – one for which your training has prepared you. To find possibility in catastrophe. To work with unfamiliar constraints, to help define them, and then respond to them. To sustain the aspects of life and society that are successful, and work to reinvent the myriad things that will need reinvention. To bring a fully human perspective to means of interaction that are now more consistently digital. And to work through and help others work through their fear with creativity.
At the core of this crisis is human need. When you are ready, there is an unlimited amount of work to do. The challenges we face require education, patience, care, and ongoing support. Plus they will require funding, partnerships, and unprecedented collaboration. We will need to envision, design, and build new systems and services. We will need to invent new methods and models, apply them, and learn from them.
When you are ready, let us co-create together.