CCS Receives Toon Boom Accreditation, the Same Software Used to Create Emmy Nominated Animated Films

November 11, 2022
Animation Lab

logo, COE Toon Boom center of excellence badgeCCS receives accreditation from Toon Boom’s Center of Excellence (COE) program, placing the College on the map as one of the first in the Midwest to do so.

Toon Boom’s COE program encourages post-secondary institutions to offer a superior learning experience to students aspiring to have a career in animation or storyboarding through the exposure of Toon Boom’s software. The COE designation is a public recognition that certifies that a school’s animation program meets a high standard of depth, breadth, and quality. Assistant Professor and Section Lead for Animation, Melissa McCann helped the Entertainment Arts department and the College receive this recognition after three years of determination. 

“We started incorporating Toon Boom more and more into our lesson plan—since it’s the industry standard, it seemed logical,” McCann said. “At the end of the first two years, I worked with a representative from Toon Boom to review our student work and see what we were missing to receive accreditation. By the third year, we got approval for curriculum changes, and when we sent our student samples, they were incredibly impressed with the changes. Then, BOOM! We were COE official.”

Toon Boom sets the industry standard for animation and storyboarding software, and it’s used by students, artists, and studios in more than 100 countries. Students who graduate from a program with this recognition have an advantage because of the high demand for knowledge of the Toon Boom 2D software—with over 500 industry studios using the software to create games, TV shows, advertisements, and movies. The software was used to create “The Princess and the Frog,” “The Simpsons,” “The Spongebob Squarepants Movie,” “Mulan II,” “The Bob’s Burgers Movie,” among other notable titles and 90% of Emmy-nominated animated films. 

Through their COE program, colleges with the accreditation are connected with studios. For example, Toon Boom has set up quarterly meetings between studios in Canada with Algonquin College. The studios give feedback on the new graduates, the schools let the studios know who is graduating, and provide first dibs on hiring those students.

The list of requirements an institution has to meet to receive accreditation includes: Offer a specific degree or diploma in animation, storyboarding, or a related field such as video game development; Each Instructor(s)/teacher(s) must attend at least one of Toon Boom’s online courses pertinent to their discipline, per year; courses offered in animation and storyboarding must incorporate Toon Boom software, and these courses should be available continuously throughout the academic year, along with a host of other requirements.