Concerns about the future of the Master’s Program in Information Architecture at ENS de Lyon
We are current or former students of the master’s program in Information Architecture at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon. And it came to us as a surprise when we learned that not a single first-year student would be admitted to the master’s program this coming school year.
This is a program that, in just five years, found a vibrant audience and a dynamic modus operandi, with happy, fulfilled students who easily find a job once they graduate.
The master’s students in Information Architecture at ENS de Lyon are fully engaged in the era they live in. They study and question new tools and emerging practices, making the user central to all of their reflections when machines tend to take center stage. Moreover, they are concerned with the architecture, organization and access to information. This master’s offers a modern approach to the increasingly relevant questions surrounding the access, pertinence and value of information.
In the past five years, these students have thoroughly enjoyed the instruction of professors who are passionate, committed and eager to engage in conversation with their students. These Professors strive to create diverse cohorts so that the students can mutually benefit from their different “walks of life” — from their varying academic and professional backgrounds to their social and geographical origins, as well as their differences in age and life experience.
These students organize events (World Information Architecture Day, Ethics by Design) which shape the image of ENS de Lyon — the image of a pioneering institution in France and in Europe that is contributing to the study of Information Architecture.
A master’s builds on itself, yet there will be no new class this year. By accompanying the newcomers and joining those who have gone before us, we forge links and thrive in these new relationships. Together we form an active professional network whose development is now being slowed down.
The decision to “pause” the program raises a number of questions. What will happen in a year? What will be done in order to revive the program next year? The announcement to momentarily discontinue recruitment for the program mentions that a number of professors are “unavailable”. Yet, our teachers are available. The problem is that there are not enough of them to teach our courses. One of the heads of the department is retiring this summer — it is no surprise, this departure has been planned for awhile. One of our teachers this year was a visiting professor from Quebec for the school year; when the year ends, she will return to her university. One of the department’s earliest professors, present since the program’s inception, left ENS de Lyon in the middle of last year, and only one of his courses was replaced. The second head of the department is approaching retirement age; without knowing what his choices will be, it is necessary to start considering his replacement so that this master’s lives on. Because we would love for this master’s to live on, and this “pause” seems more like a funeral wake for a death that has not been formally announced.
The title of the page “L’ENS de Lyon” on the school’s website reads “Excellence and interdisciplinarity”. The master’s in Information Architecture, an innovative, cross-disciplinary and modern program, is precisely at the heart of this interdisciplinarity which ENS claims or wishes for. The school prides itself on having a “digital hub” and has just opened a master’s in “Digital Humanities”. Yet, the decision to suspend our master’s endangers an intelligent program that questions the digital world and works to make it more accessible, more comprehensible, and better adapted to the uses and needs of its users, meaning everyone. Why abandon a program today that the school profoundly believed in five years ago, and whose relevance has never been denied?
The vast majority of the master’s students are not “normaliens” (hired and paid by ENS), and therefore cost little money to the institution. A quarter of our students are enrolled in “continuing education” and finance their own studies. The master’s vocational counterpart (Diploma in Project Management in Information Architecture) seems to be very successful and has had a significant financial impact at ENS de Lyon. The MOOC Information Architecture, which had its third season this year with more than 4,000 members, is also a tool that actively contributes to the visibility of ENS.
Lastly, this decision, made within the last few days of April, places international students who have already received an acceptance letter in a difficult situation. Others, who were admitted for the 2016 academic year, signed a contract with ENS de Lyon to guarantee a place in “promotion 6”, the one that will not exist if the decision to “pause recruitment” is maintained. We wonder about the solutions foreseen for those who have made relocation plans for Lyon — sometimes from far away with all the financial investments and administrative procedures involved, requests for scholarships, etc. — who relied on a master’s program that had already accepted them and who did not have a plan B. Why would they have one when they were admitted to ENS de Lyon?
For all the reasons mentioned above, we are convinced that Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon can only benefit from its continued investment in the master’s in Information Architecture.
Worried students from the master’s in Information Architecture
