Recently, the Ministry of Education published the List of National First-class Undergraduate Major Construction Sites 2020, and the Animation Major of the School of Film and Animation was successfully selected in the list, marking that the Animation Major has officially been included into the “Double 10000 Programs” for the construction of first-class undergraduate majors from the “National Characteristic Major", and demonstrating the achievements of major construction and talent training of the Animation Major over the past 18 years.
In the process of construction and development, the Animation Major fully implements the guiding principle of "Undergraduate Orientation & Four Returns", focuses on moral education, earnestly consolidates the positions of talent training center and undergraduate teaching base, and comprehensively improves the quality of talent training. At the beginning of its establishment, the major proposed the management philosophy of "original, innovative, excellent and unique". It began to recruit undergraduates in 2004, and was approved as the granting site of Master of Fine Arts professional degree in 2014. It adheres to the position of cultivating high-quality applied animation professionals, and has gone through three major stages of “exploration, connotation construction, and summary and promotion”, achieving leapfrog development after 18 years of unremitting efforts.
The University fully supports the construction of Animation Major, and established the Digital Animation Creative Center of Chengdu University in 2005, so as to complete the teaching experiment system and layout open to the digital entertainment industry of the whole province. In 2006, based on the distinct characteristics and outstanding achievements of teaching reform and research, the Animation Major was recognized as Chengdu Digital Animation Creative Center and Chengdu Animation Talent Training Base by Chengdu municipal government. In 2008, the Animation Major was approved as a provincial characteristic major, and the Animation Experiment Center was approved as the Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center of Sichuan colleges and universities, and became the mobile content creation base of Chengdu University under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China. In 2009, Sichuan Animation Research Center was approved as a key research base of humanities and social sciences of Sichuan Provincial Department of Education - the only animation academic research base in Southwest China. In 2010, the Animation Major was approved as a national characteristic major. In 2013, Sichuan Animation Research Center was approved as a key research base of philosophy and social sciences in Sichuan Province. In 2015, Sichuan Animation & Game Collaborative Innovation Center was approved for construction. In 2019, the Animation Major was approved as the first-class undergraduate major construction site in Sichuan Province. In 2020, the Animation Major ranked sixth nationwide in the Evaluation Report of Universities and Disciplines in China released by Research Center for Chinese Science Evaluation.
In the past 18 years, the teachers and students of Animation Major have carried out bold explanation. In terms of teaching, 2 provincial teaching reform projects and 2 provincial excellent courses were approved and 2 provincial teaching achievement awards were won; in terms of scientific research, 1 sub-project of NSSFC major bidding project, 1 art project of NSSFC, 2 projects of CNAF and more than 20 provincial projects were approved, and more than 100 papers were published, including more than 30 CSSCI journal papers and more than 10 monographs and textbooks. The animation team meticulously created and published such famous IP animations as Princess Wencheng and Old and Young Avanti, created and completed the theme animation Reunion for China National Pavilion at Expo Milan 2015, and participated in the theme animation Chasing the Sun for China National Pavilion at Expo Astana 2017; Going Home for the Spring Festival, Stars, Harmony and Friendliness, and Door of Integrity respectively won the first prize, the second prize and the third prize of animation creation reflecting socialist core values sponsored by the National Radio and Television Administration.
The construction of Animation Major closely meets the needs of Chengdu's economic development, seizes the new opportunity of global cultural and creative industry structure adjustment, takes the golden opportunity of vigorous support for animation industry by the state, province and city, and leverages the policy advantages of several national industrial development platforms such as "National Online Game & Animation Industry Development Base" and "National Animation & Game Industry Revitalization Base" in Chengdu, considers the serious shortage of high-quality application-oriented animation talents in China, seeks the collaboration among government, university and enterprise to integrate resources, adapt teaching content and vigorously promote teaching reform, explores the construction ideas of Animation Major and the training mode of high-quality application-oriented talents, and finally forms distinct characteristics of a clear management idea, a remarkable talent training mode, strong practical ability of students and outstanding teaching reform and innovation spirit. At present, the Animation Major has established a team based on the combination of animation technology and art and focusing on professional teaching and scientific research, integrated various resources to form an industry-university-research teacher cluster, established and strengthened the grass-roots teaching practice organization with curriculum group at the core, adopted the "interdisciplinary, project-driven and collaborative" talent training mode focusing on the cultivation of students' practical ability, and actively constructed the quality assurance mechanism of practical teaching for college students. In recent years, the School of Film and Animation has mobilized various resources to continuously strengthen the construction of practical teaching system, and made efforts to build a high-quality practical teaching platform for collaborative innovation studio. Based on the position of training high-quality application-oriented talents of Chengdu University, the Animation Major actively integrates into the development of the industry, takes art as the disciplinary characteristics, studies the combination of art and practice, and takes the art practice ability and innovative design ability as the core to cultivate innovative compound applied talents with strong learning, practical ability and self-development ability.
The approval as a national first-class undergraduate major construction site not only reflects the highest recognition for the 18-year construction achievements of the Animation Major by the education administration, but also marks a new milestone in the development of Animation Major. The Animation Major will closely meet the needs of economic and social development of the state, province and city, fully rely on the first-class major construction and the innovation platform of government, industry, university and research, further improve the collaborative education and practice teaching mechanism, deepen the teaching reform, improve the quality of education and teaching, and constantly improve the "project + platform" collaborative talent training mode in combination with the development trend and hot spots of animation industry, so as to clarify the position, optimize the talent training program, expand student output channels, and enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of the major. Teachers are encouraged to carry out reform in teaching content, methodology and means, conduct in-depth reform research and practice in the fields of animation innovation talents training, research-based learning, education reform and international talent training, further improve the teaching level and quality of Animation Major, take the initiative to participate in the Belt and Road initiative construction, cultivate animation talents for Chengdu, China and even the ASEAN countries, and strive to build a first-class undergraduate major with distinct characteristics in terms of animation design backbone training, scientific research and local service.
