Valedictorian, Animation Major Sally Li Weitzner Reflects on the Path to a Creative Life

Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC/CUNY) will celebrate its 59^th Commencement on Wednesday, June 5 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The ceremony will feature over 3,000 graduates propelled on their way to reaching higher economic mobility and realizing their dreams. It will also deliver a spectacular multicultural celebration with dancers from a diverse range of cultures that students can point to as their own.

Last but not least, the BMCC Commencement is known for its messages of pride, encouragement and the validation that BMCC graduates truly do leave the world better than they found it.

Among the speakers whose words will ground this celebration in the values that keep BMCC strong, is the 2024 Valedictorian. This year, that honor goes to Animation and Motion Graphics major Sally Li Weitzner, as announced at the BMCC Honors Convocation held May 28 in Theatre 2 at the College’s main campus at 199 Chambers Street.

The seeds for a creative life in media arts start in high school

“I grew up in a working class family where my parents delivered laundry and usually worked from five in the morning to twelve at night,” Weitzner says. “Because of this, I always had an awareness that I had a responsibility to succeed enough to give something back to them, and that the least I could do was try my best in my studies.”

As Weitzner explains, “My mom is a first-generation immigrant from Guangzhou, China. My dad is from Queens, New York.”

Her mother, she says, eventually enrolled at BMCC, graduated with an Associate of Arts in Health Information Technology and went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Brooklyn College, CUNY.

The family lived in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and remain there today. In 2020, Weitzner graduated from the High School of Art and Design, a CTE (Career and Technical Education) high school in midtown Manhattan that prepares students for a career in commercial art.

Weitzner took a gap year and a half after graduation from high school, to pursue her interests in animation and film, ride out the pandemic and gather her energy for college. Once she was ready, she chose BMCC.

“My mom is a BMCC alum so it always seemed like an accessible choice to me,” she says. “BMCC has well-equipped animation and film programs and it was affordable—especially in comparison to four-year private art schools. So, it made sense to me as a student from a low-income background.”

Immersed in BMCC’s culture of support for aspiring media artists, Weitzner thrived.

A gifted animator, Weitzner won Best Animated Film in the Spring 2023 BMCC Film Festival for her short film, Get Along Lil Doggie.

“I try to create work that feels true in some way to the world around me,” she says. “I prefer 2-D/hand-drawn digital animation and try to make sure it feels organic.”

While maintaining a 4.0 GPA and participating in various clubs and groups at BMCC, she has also found work as a freelance character designer and animator.

“Most of my work has come from connections I made at BMCC, either through professors or peers I happened to run into,” she says. “As a freelancer for small productions I create concept art that defines the look of the characters, backgrounds and props.”

Depending on the project, she explains, “I’m then responsible for bringing those elements to life through hand-drawn, 2-D animation.”

In addition, she works on graphic design and sometimes completes illustration assignments for Mixed Asian Media, an organization that highlights work from mixed Asian Pacific Islander (API) individuals throughout pop culture.

Giving back and finding support are both part of the supportive culture at BMCC.

In addition to finding inspiration in the film community at BMCC, Weitzner made an effort to support fellow students through the cohort programs she was part of.

These included Out in Two, the Cinema Arts Club and the BMCC Achievers. She also co-founded and served as Vice-President of the BMCC Animation Club.

“I’ve helped out at on-campus events like the beginning-of-semester welcome table, the BMCC Career Fair and Social Justice Week,” she says.

While giving to others was an activity Weitzner engaged in at BMCC, she also found the faculty and staff at BMCC ready to help, when she herself could use some encouragement or support.

“If I needed clarification on an assignment or feedback on part of an essay, my professors’ office hours were an amazing resource,” Weitzner says.

“Sometimes I would ask for advice about four-year schools or internships, and there was always a professor or advisor who was happy to help. Even if I was just struggling with the mental aspects of an assignment—which come up pretty often when you take film and art classes—being vulnerable and sharing that part of my process has really helped me do my best work.”

Creative faculty members inspire student artists.

At BMCC, Weitzner found mentors including faculty members whose own creative endeavors were an inspiration.

“I’ve been working on Professor Shon Keane’s film Finding Bernie,” she says, “and I greatly enjoyed taking scriptwriting and an elective about representation in Hollywood films with them.”

She also credits as an inspiration, Professor Anastassios Rigopoulos, who serves as advisor for the Cinema Arts Club and oversees the BMCC student film festivals.

Professor Robert Thill, she says, taught the internship course she took. “For most of the semester I thought I wouldn’t find an internship, because an opportunity dried up when the SAG strikes started,” Weitzner says. Then, her luck changed.

“When I was ready to give up, Professor Jamal Sullivan spoke to the Animation Club about an opportunity to adapt a short story into an animated short film. I worked on the visual development and started to adapt the story into screenplay format, and the rest of the club took it further after I graduated.”

Sullivan, she says, “gave great advice on my animation and life as an artist in general and created a very welcoming class environment. In fact, all of these professors were incredibly supportive of me and my work.”

What she has learned about being a college student, she says, hasn’t all centered on the immediate assignment at hand.

“I think you have to find something in every class that you can take with you,” she says. “I don’t really remember the formula for calculating the interest in a savings account from my Quantitative Reasoning class, but I did learn to become comfortable raising my hand again or studying for a test without pulling an all-nighter.”

Though she has applied to a number of colleges, she’s still waiting to hear back from them. Wherever she ends up transferring in the Fall, she hopes to major in animation and media studies.

“I love how subjective and flexible animation can be,” she says. “Everything that makes it to screen has to pass through your hands, so it’s inseparable from your point of view. I’d like to continue making short films and work on projects with fresh perspectives that tell stories that matter to me.”