Dear Stephanie Villemagne and Victor Cantavella,

We are writing to you to communicate the opinion all of us hold with regards to the proceeding of our MiM programme, that began in January this year.

First of all, we would like to acknowledge the efficiency of IE moving from off- to online education. Given that the change in situation was highly unexpected for everyone, the adaptation went very quickly. In addition, we all appreciate IE’s extra effort in teaching online to improve our education in these difficult circumstances. We are all positive that IE’s superior online teaching methods together with our professors would result in a great online experience, so that IE will be 100% ready on April 14th to teach online classes in the best way possible.

This excellence notwithstanding, we strongly believe that teaching classes online in the best way possible, is not the best possible way to teach classes. It was a great quick fix for the short term, as it allowed us to complete the 1st period, but it must not be the long term solution. We can list our reasons for this, elaborating on the differences between classes taught face-to-face and online, but losing ourselves in this discussion is not the purpose of this appeal. Moreover, we are already on the same page anyway. Because, conversely, if we all thought that teaching classes online is as good as, or even better than, teaching classes face-to-face, IE would have been teaching the classes online from the very beginning and we as students would have paid for classes online accordingly. Needless to say, this is not the case. In normal situations, IE rightfully chooses to still teach the MiM face-to-face, and we as MiM-students still demand to take classes face-to-face. That is what brings the most value, and that is why we pay the high tuition fees.

Now, it is obvious that this is far from a normal situation. Exceptional times call for exceptional measures, and the measures taken by IE deserve great credit, as they display a highly adequate response to astonishing adversity. But we appeal to a response that suits all of us even better. As done with executive programs at IE in the exact same circumstances: postpone our program as long as necessary, so that classes can again be taught face-to-face. This is how we want our education. In the unlikely event that the situation does not return to normal anytime soon, we are willing to resume the program with the 2nd period when the next September-intake starts.

We trust and appreciate your understanding.

Best regards,

All of us, MiM-students, January 2020 intake, who signed for this petition.