# answers to a student This is a set of questions sent to me by a college student during the Thanksgiving break of 2025. It turned into a longer response than I was expecting. Worth sharing here. --- **How large is the department in terms of students and faculty? I've heard that the art/animation industry is losing popularity, is this true?**   I work primarily at Lansing Community College, although I do teach some classes at Michigan State University. Unfortunately, the Animation course I teach at MSU has been suspended indefinitely due to budget cuts and program shrinkage. It won't be resurrected in the foreseeable future. The animation content at LCC is still running, although it too is shrinking. We recently lost the Multimedia degree that used to house the 3D and animation content due to low enrollment. Our departments are being reorganized and so I technically teach in two programs: a fine art foundation program and a digital media program that includes graphic communication, audio, cinematography. The 2D Animation course I teach is technically only part of a web-design sub-category of Graphic Communication. I'm also slated to take over the Storyboard and Animatics class that is part of more degree tracks. The Animation class had only two students last semester and the Storyboard class currently has three students enrolled for spring semester. Obviously, the classes are not popular or full. They aren't encouraged or promoted by either LCC or MSU. This surprises me the hell out of me since everything in the marketing, social media, web industries are focused on time-based media. Everything is a Reel. Students play with apps like CapCut and do video edits all the time in their free time. This is where the work will be. Not sure where the disconnect is between education and industry. That being said, the traditional art and animation industry is currently undergoing a huge disruption. AI generated workflows and a perceived loss in interest for animated content are causing companies to drastically reduce staff or even close up shop completely. This is happening for both animation as entertainment and in the video game industry. AI in particular is completely disrupting entire industries. Not sure how it is going to work itself out, although I don't see a return to static content any time soon. Motion-based media is still going to grow. **What is the general workload for students/staff?**   Again, I only taught an intro course at MSU and so I'm not sure what happens over there. At LCC we make sure to keep students working. Most students are taking 12 to 16 credits per semester which works out to three or four classes. Since I have a limited amount of time with only a few time-based media courses, I try to cover a lot of content. I'm trying to fit a solid foundation into a short amount of time. In the end, the classes become wide but not very deep, if that make sense. I try to connect workflows and concepts across assignments so the overall process makes sense. Creating animation, in particular, takes a lot of small discrete steps and tasks across a range of disciplines. As for staff workload, we are all severely overloaded right now at LCC. With shifting programs and difficulty finding qualified educators, all of us are teaching above our normal workload. Between LCC and MSU, I taught 24 credits this semester and will probably be teaching a similar load in the spring. That's a lot of prep and grading. **What do people in the department value most—technique, creativity, money, something else?**  There seems to be a fundamental difference between MSU and LCC regarding priorities. MSU tends to favor creativity and theory while LCC favors technique and functional skills. MSU is the pie-in-the-sky and LCC is for getting a job. That's a typical difference between four year institutions and community colleges. Not to dismiss MSU but we get a lot of MSU grads looking to get employable skills over here at LCC. Personally, I try to cover the full range as best as I can. Ideas and visual expression are important and the reason you get into the game. Conversely, you need to know how to use the software to be able to make your visual statement. You need to know what is possible with the tools you are using. You need to be able to drive the software but you also need to have something to say. The two sides are completely dependent on each other. While making money and being employable are important, my focus is more on teaching the workflow and concepts. If you have the talent to say something interesting and know how to use the tools, then you will find work. It may not be working on the next Pixar or Disney flick but you will find work enough to pay the bills. As I said earlier, motion-based media is not going away and so there will continue to be jobs. **What inspired you to work in this department?** I have had a wandering and indirect route in becoming a design instructor. Originally I wanted to become a Disney animator so the foundation was always there. Instead of seeking a direct path, though, I chose to get a degree in Architecture. The idea was that I would learn creativity and visual design while also learning technical precision and a more mathematical approach to art. I figured balancing the creative and technical skills would make it easier to get a start in the industry. Architecture school was intense and definitely taught me a huge range of skillsets and workflows. I learned discipline and technique, but, above all, I learned the creative mindset that design is design is design. It doesn't matter if you are designing a building, creating a logo and branding, or developing a comic character. The outcomes and products vary but the creative process is mostly the same. Only the details and tools are different. I loved architectural design in school and did pretty well with it as a professional. I got bored with real world applications, though, and so I made a career change into graphic design. While working at the architecture firm, I also got to create architectural renderings, handle marketing and proposal graphics, develop visual standards. That stuff was way more fun for me so I made a big jump into a freelance career as a visual designer. I worked on a variety of projects in huge range of fields. I created logos and branding, built websites, did architectural renderings, made album covers for a few local bands, and even got into fine art. I had a number of gallery shows and won several best in show awards at art fairs. It was enough to pay the bills but not enough to feel like I was thriving. In the end, the girl I was dating said I needed to have stable income if we were going to get married. So I answered an ad in the Lansing State Journal to teach a few classes at LCC. I did pretty well my first semester and so they gave me a few more classes and then a few more. Turns out I had found my calling. This is my twenty-first year teaching and I've covered everything from traditional art to art foundations, architectural drawing, vector drawing, web design, 3D development, and animation. That open mindset of design and creativity that was taught to me in college still influences what and how I teach today. I still try to show students how everything is connected. It seems to work because students seem to really like me and are usually amazed at what they are able to do by the end of a course I've taught. **What's your opinion on the use of AI tools? Are they helpful or causing harm?** I'm old enough to have lived through a few disruptions. I grew up learning traditional tools like film cameras, manual pasteups, cel painted animation. I was also coming of age just as the digital versions of those tools became available. I learned traditional darkroom workflows as I was also learning this new program called Photoshop. That change shifted everything. When I started teaching at LCC twenty years ago, I was teaching professional graphic designers how to use the digital tools so they wouldn't become unemployed. An entire generation of middle-aged professionals had to relearn their careers all over again because the industry shifted underneath them. This might happen again. AI is different than that shift. Back then it was all about learning new tools and workflows for what was essentially the same job. The thinking and creative mindset were mostly the same. This time there's a completely different mindset and workflow shift that it going to take time to understand. You aren't changing from a pencil to vector line. Now you need to prompt and engineer a tool to describe the line you want and hope that it gets it right. I'm cautiously optimistic about the use of AI in visual design. It is a powerful tool that can do some amazing things. As a tool, I think it works great for concepting ideas and possibilities. It might even be good for creating some source material. The danger, though, is that people are using it to create entire finished products without a ton of oversight or control. They get what they get and base the quality on whether it looks neat or not. As a designer, I focus on things like composition, design principles, layout, color, contrast, etc. I'm trying to control what I'm saying and how I'm saying it. I want to have tools that let me tweak elements at a subtle and nuanced level so I can make the exact visual statement I envision. Generative AI is nowhere near that level of control yet and probably never will be. Remember design is way more than just what things look like, it is also about how things work. Having an educated and experienced human designer behind the process leads to be better and more appropriate solutions. I guess it comes down to how and why the tools are being used. Too often I see students using AI as a way to bypass thinking and that scares me. They are learning to hit the buttons without considering what they are trying to say or why it is important. I prefer the students that are using AI to generate ideas and elements that they then manipulate themselves to build their own nuanced work. I'm also thinking about the huge industry and cultural backlash to AI. Many are rightfully concerned about content theft and loss of artistic thinking. There's already a huge push for non-AI work. Many people are wearing the non-AI badge with pride. There will always be people who prefer more traditional methods, just as there are still people who draw by hand or use film cameras. AI is just another new form of creativity and it will grow into whatever it becomes. It isn't necessarily going to replace or destroy everything else. They will all exist in some uncomfortable relationship for the near future though. A relevant tangential example is coming to mind. Traditional hand drawn animation had existed for a generations until digital techniques came along. The digital approach was still mostly 2D until 3D became a big deal after Toy Story. For a while there was a lot of really bad 3D work being made as people figured out the tools. Now that tool and techniques and training have saturated the market, 3D is considered the default. Recently, though, there's a been a shift back toward purely traditional 2D animation or more interesting hybrids blending both 2D and 3D techniques. The tools keep changing and yet the focus is and always will be on the storytelling.