At NYU Abu Dhabi, the close-knit nature of our community creates many unique relationships in the context of university living. Much of our life, educational and otherwise, centers on the Saadiyat campus which we call home. Even within our most immediate home, the residential colleges, unconventional roles bring us closer together. Faculty Fellows-in-Residence, a program which brings faculty members into dorms alongside students, comprises an important part of Residential Education’s vision for fostering a spirit of community. In each Residential College, one faculty member or family bridges the traditional spatial gap between faculty and students by making a residential college their home. FFiRs act as community builders and supporters by hosting programs for their residential colleges and being sources of advice and support.
Meet the New FFIR: Craig Protzel
“I think not everyone in our building knows that we’re there. So sometimes they take two looks to say, oh do you live here?”
Sep 18, 2016
At NYU Abu Dhabi, the close-knit nature of our community creates many unique relationships in the context of university living. Much of our life, educational and otherwise, centers on the Saadiyat campus which we call home. Even within our most immediate home, the residential colleges, unconventional roles bring us closer together. Faculty Fellows-in-Residence, a program which brings faculty members into dorms alongside students, comprises an important part of Residential Education’s vision for fostering a spirit of community. In each Residential College, one faculty member or family bridges the traditional spatial gap between faculty and students by making a residential college their home. FFiRs act as community builders and supporters by hosting programs for their residential colleges and being sources of advice and support.
Assistant Professor of Interactive Media Craig Protzel, who is transitioning into the role of being Interactive Media Program Head, is the new FFIR. Protzel has made a new home in Residential College A5 with his wife, Amanda Hope Macari. They have no kids or pets as of yet, but they are considering getting a couple of plants. The Gazelle sat down with Protzel to learn more about him and his plans for his time as an FFIR.
Protzel began his road to teaching at NYUAD with an undergraduate degree from Stanford University.
“Finishing up my undergrad, I realized I had a genuine interest in communication and storytelling, in technology, in the arts, in making and I really wasn’t sure what direction to go,” said Protzel of the interests that led to his career path.
In his senior year of undergraduate education, one project made him realize his love for editing.
“I had done a project … that involved editing a stand-up comedy event that I produced, and we filmed it, and created a 20-minute documentary film,” said Protzel. “I realized that I loved the editing work of piecing together the data which was my video clips … and figuring out how to tell a story with that.”
Protzel then worked in a post-production company for a few years. His work ranged from TV show promotions to TV commercials and eventually a documentary film. He then transitioned into working on feature film trailers. An emerging use of technology signaled his next shift in focus.
“I transitioned from working on trailers into the emerging webisode world around 2008-09. I actually got to do some of the early webisode webseries that were online. That's when I got a passion for exploring emerging technologies and playing with them … and trying to connect with people,” shared Protzel, who began to feel as though he wanted to learn and utilize skills that went beyond editing.
“I wanted to do more than just edit content … I thought maybe business school would be a good next step for me to kind of broaden my own network … and kind of branch out further, and I was visiting NYU Stern,” he says of exploring a new path.
However, he didn’t end up studying at NYU Stern.
“In the process of looking into Stern, I heard about this graduate program offered at Tisch called ITP, Interactive Telecommunications Program, a two-year masters program,” said Protzel. “[They said it’s] where artists meet engineers, and I remember thinking, ‘I am not an artist and I’m not an engineer, [but] I wish I could go there,’” he said of ITP, where he eventually took a teaching position.
During his interview at NYU Stern, Protzel mentioned his eagerness to take classes at ITP. The interviewers weren’t sure if that was possible, and encouraged him to talk to ITP administrators. When he walked over to inquire about taking classes, the decision to pursue a masters from ITP was virtually made for him.
“I walked in and I just fell in love with the place immediately. I remember I bumped into a student who was moving his hand closer to a skateboard, and these LED lights would light up every time… and I said, ‘Wow, what class is this for?’ And he said, ‘It’s not for a class. The taxis are getting too close to me when I ride home and I wanna light up so they don’t hit me.’ And I [thought to myself] that that’s cool, I wanna do that,” said Protzel.
He also shared a story in which he helped a student adjust the sound on a video before he ran off to class. He said that ITP felt like a fit.
“So I came back the next day and I said, How can I come here? And they said, How soon can you get an application in? I applied within a week and ended up moving to New York a couple months later and starting this program,” said Protzel of the whirlwind change he undertook.
He wasn’t familiar yet with many of the skills that he would be introduced to through the program. When asked how he knew what choices to make in his career path, Protzel responded that gut feelings and the willingness to try new things were surefire methods for him.
“If you’re heading in a direction that you feel good about, then that’s really the most important thing,” he said. “Try things. You really have to get out there and do them, get involved. I’ve never been able to figure anything out sitting at my desk in front of my computer.”
In New York, Protzel was immersed in a new environment and acquired a new skillset from his time at ITP.
“I had never written a line of code, I had never done anything in the engineering or the computer science world beyond using computers to do video, so this was just … blowing my mind,” said Protzel.
He finds food metaphors especially useful when explaining his experience at ITP, calling it a brunch buffet of interactive media, in which you don’t have to eat the same thing twice. Trying so many new mediums presented Protzel with new interests.
“I got introduced to programming and software and really enjoyed that. I enjoyed web development and creating web-based experiences,” said Protzel. “So much of what we do in interactive media involves thinking through some kind of computational process to bring about an idea to life.”
For his senior project, he collaborated with the New York City Alzheimer's Association and translated some of their in-person activities into a web-based format, so that patients could access them at home. He enjoyed their experience of taking a game and moving it online, thereby increasing access.
“I loved that notion of [utilizing] technology to bring about [these] experiences,” said Protzel.
After graduate school, Protzel began to teach at ITP. His first class was called Video for the Web. Afterwards, he did a fellowship at Vimeo.
“They asked me, Hey, can you play with the data we have and see what you can do with that?” Protzel said of his work at Vimeo, which he later compared to his work with the New York City Alzheimer's Association.
“I kept doing projects like this, and one was in the medical area, another [was] more for digital publishing and online education but the patterns were all the same. I remember reaching out to the director of ITP, saying, ‘Why don’t we have a class that takes students through those steps of understanding the web, pulling in data [and] working with code to create those experiences?’ And he said, ‘that’s a great idea, you should teach that class.’”
Protzel taught the class, which eventually became Mashups when he came to NYUAD. He is now teaching Mashups for the seventh time, and for the third at NYUAD.
Proztel loves the constant learning that comes along with teaching.
“I feel like I could be a lifelong student, and I can’t, so the best thing to do is to teach,” he said, noting that getting inspired by students’ ideas is one of the highlights of being a teacher.
At NYUAD, he appreciates the diverse community and all of the learning experiences it offers.
“When I got to know more about Abu Dhabi and NYUAD, I was really just fascinated by the diverse community,” he said.
Protzel and his wife lived in campus housing A4 for their first few years in Abu Dhabi. They enjoyed the mixed community of Global Academic Fellows, faculty and post-doctoral candidates. For the couple, choosing to take on the FFiR position was a no-brainer.
“When we were thinking about this FFiR [position] and whether this was something we wanted to pursue, we [thought], Well, we love the diverse community, we love all the extra curricular activities… this will just offer us more of a structure and path to continue doing that,” said Protzel. “The highlight is definitely all the interactions we get from students.”
Protzel also shared that so far, living in Residential College A5 doesn’t feel too different from living in A4.
“I think not everyone in our building knows that we’re there. So sometimes they take two looks to say, Oh, do you live here?” he shared.
In terms of programming, Protzel has a few ideas.
“There’s an opening at the [NYUAD] Art Gallery happening for the show Invisible Threads, which is actually closely tied to Interactive Media. A lot of the artists are affiliated with our program, so I’m looking to do some sort of coordinated event — possibly a tour and a talk with the artists, and maybe have people come over for a meal.”
As foodies, Protzel shared that he and his wife will likely host events centered around building community over food. There will be no tiramisu, however.
“I’ve been asked a number of times if I make tiramisu,” Protzel joked with a chuckle. There is pressure to live up to the FFiR tradition of Goffredo Puccetti and his wife Francesca Puccetti.
Protzel mentioned a new type of activity called Friday Flicks. “I love making popcorn, so I think popcorn goes well with movies,” he said.
Playing homage to his time in New York, he also mentioned hosting breakfast with bagels brought over from NYC. Protzel noted his desire to have activities in the residence, on campus as well as off.
“Two years ago with the surfing [Student Interest Group], I went to the Al Ain Water Tank, and I don’t think … they do that anymore, but I was thinking it would be fun to do a trip back to the surf tank. [It’s] such a unique, exhilarating experience,” said Protzel. “I grew up in California, so I don’t get to surf as much here in the desert.”
Beyond such fun activities, he also hopes that his role as FFiR can be useful to students by supporting the efforts of Residential Assistants. Protzel attends Residential Education meetings and has offered support to the RAs, such as planning an event focused on creating and maintaining balance in students’ lives. Protzel also noted his eagerness to ensure that the concerns of residents are communicated to faculty. Used to a busy environment, Protzel and Macari harbor no apprehensions about living with students.
“We like to play music, we like to laugh and make noise too. We lived the last five years on 10th street in East Village in New York and you can hear every word and every conversation and everything that’s going on with everybody in the streets … Abu Dhabi is pretty quiet, so we welcome the kind of energy and atmosphere that the student dorm brings,” said Protzel.
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