Women in Animation was formed more than 30 years ago to support and grow the scant number of women working in the field of animation.
The nonprofit has grown to 11,000 members worldwide and is a preeminent advocacy group supporting female-identifying and nonbinary people in animation, visual effects and gaming.
WIA Student Collectives, including the WIA Cal State Fullerton Collective, have played a significant role in the nonprofit’s growth, enabling university students to build connections and support among members as they work to make inroads into the industry.
The CSUF collective offers industry-related resources to members and organizes workshops, mixers and speaker events for CSUF animation students and advocates for gender equality in the animation industry.
Any CSUF student, including students who don’t identify as a woman, can become a member of the collective.
“It’s not exclusionary,” collective member and officer Pedro Maradiaga said. “It was started by women, but their goal is to help all minority groups and as well as people who may not be minority groups. It’s supposed to be an open and safe space because, historically, most spaces in animation and most other industries are dominated by men.”
Animation major Brooke Olson has been a member of the collective for nearly two years after hearing about it from a friend, who told her several members were graduating and the collective was looking for new members.
“I really love the kind of community that was built within the arts department through WIA,” said Olson, an officer in the collective. “I was able to meet a lot of cool people and meet a lot of friends while also learning a bit more about art with the resources and events that WIA provides with the clubs on campus and also within the departments. It’s really nice, too, because we have a lot of faculty that are alumni of WIA as well.”
The collective also collaborates with related clubs such as the Video Game Development Club, Pencil Mileage Club and others.
Member Teeny Nadeau first learned about the collective after transferring from Saddleback Community College and attending Discoverfest, CSUF’s largest involvement event that showcases student organizations.
Nadeau, who is a double major in illustration and animation, is also drawn to the sense of community within the collective. She said everybody in the group is “super friendly and amazing.”
“We get to do all these fun activities, and we all have this shared sense of art,” Nadeau said. “I’ve always been in the 2D kind of scene when it comes to art, and I didn’t know if I wanted to do 2D animation or if I wanted to do background or concept art, so I just kind of decided I’d expand my horizons.
Nadeau, incidentally, was recently awarded a $10,000 scholarship from Sketchers for print design artwork she submitted for “Skechers’ Paws for a Cause Design” scholarship program.
The award also included mentorship from a Sketchers industry professional.
Nadeau’s design of “goofy cats dressed in regal attire” was selected and will be used as design for a BOBS from Sketcher limited edition collection that will be released in June.
Khue Tran is a design lead for the collective and organizes the art created by other members for promotional events.
Tran first learned about the collective from a classmate who had served as the club’s president.
“I just feel like Women in Animation fosters a very specific environment,” Tran said. “Community is really important, and because of that a lot of people are more than willing to kind of pull each other up in this industry where I believe that a lot of women or people who don’t identify as men are a little bit underrepresented.”
Between 30 to 40 students typically attend the collective’s biweekly meetings, but membership is at about 200 students.
When WIA was formed in 1995, it set a goal of having an equal percentage of women and men working in the industry by 2025.
Maradiaga feels equality can be reached sooner.
“It can be done way sooner,” he said. “You look at any of the school’s demographics for animation, it’s mostly women. So, I feel like it’s going to happen naturally, and we just want to foster that. Even the people going in should all be getting into the industry with the idea of helping other people out, especially minority groups, and encouraging them as well because that’s what we mostly do. We encourage and provide a safe space, and we just have fun together.”
Related Articles
SchoolsFirst president credits CSUF education with helping him advance
Engineering competition at CSUF challenges students to make a difference in their community
CSUF’s campus garden enters a new season of understanding
Renaming affirms significance of CSUF’s LGBTQ Resource Center
CSUF professor’s ‘Mapping the Gay Guides’ is showcased at Muzeo
Leave a Reply