On a recent late-winter afternoon, Nathaniel Samuel ’10, the manager of the Brooklyn College Library’s Faculty Training and Development Lab, is sitting in the director’s seat in a dark corner studio with a white-hot light focused on Myles Bassell, deputy chair of the Management, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship department. Samuel is trying to hold back a laugh while Bassell wraps up a spiel on international business strategy that he is recording for a class in the new online-only business administration graduate degree program. “And cut,” says Samuel. “Professor, you’re a natural. But sometimes when you switch from reading to the camera, you do this thing. It looks like you are holding back a laugh and I can see it. And it makes me want to laugh.” “That’s my opportunity to swallow in between sentences!” says Bassell, who enjoys a congenial relationship with Samuel, forged between takes. It’s the kind of cozy rapport Samuel would like to develop with more professors. Many of them, he says, don’t even know about the services he and his team can provide to help faculty create multimedia content for their courses. “One of the things that Nate and his team did is they redesigned the studio,” explains Bassell, full of praise for how much Samuel makes his job easier. “This is more inviting for the speaker. It’s a distinction of excellence on Nate’s part, and I don’t know what I would do without him.” Samuel says he doesn’t know what he’d do without this job. After completing his undergraduate degree at Brooklyn College, and then a short stint in the corporate world, he came back to campus full of ideas on how he could use his multimedia skills to create content for course work and to help the college tell and preserve its stories. We spoke with him about his work, his love for storytelling, and his alter ego, Nate the Great. What was your time here as a student like? When I first arrived at Brooklyn College, I was in computer science, and I wanted to do something along those lines. I thought I’d be coding games, that kind of thing. Then I got a taste of programming and realized it was not quite for me. So much of it is done solo, and I’m too much of a people person. I like to collaborate. I was working in the Library Café, and the TV Studio is one floor below. A lot of the people who came into the café were film or TV students, and I made a lot of friends that way and picked up a lot of production skills. I switched my major to TV and radio and ended up minoring in computer science. And your first job when you graduated was here in Information Technology Services. I did that for a couple of years and then moved to the corporate world. I was working for a managed service provider, a small tech-support company that caters to small businesses. That allowed me to cut my teeth and put my knowledge to practical use. But it was a high-stress job. Everything had to be done yesterday. One day, a client who hadn’t heeded our advice to upgrade her equipment had a big issue that halted her business. Let’s just say there was a lot of yelling and screaming that day. I don’t mind talking about this: I had a panic attack. I spent 20 minutes in the bathroom hyperventilating. And I told myself, “No, this isn’t it.” I’m happy to help people, but the stress of being in the corporate world—with the good money and all—just wasn’t for me. I gave my two-weeks notice that day. You made the switch and ended up back here in your current position in fall 2021. When I got this job, one of the things I wanted to do was to provide some kind of media production service for the faculty, so we converted a classroom into a studio. I knew there was a lot of desire to create educational content for classes. It’s been so fulfilling to be able to create something so useful. Especially after the pandemic, professors had to turn on a dime but didn’t necessarily have the skill set to do it. That’s what we’re here to support. And I think I have a good way of communicating and connecting with folks, so this makes me much happier. Besides helping faculty with their content, what else do you work on? Our office provides any number of services from digitizing old VHS tapes and other out-of-use technology to helping professors use the Adobe suite and video-editing software. The library also has exhibits from time to time, but some people who are affiliated with the college can’t make the trip to see them. One of the things I’ve started doing is creating a virtual exhibit for them. At least once per semester, I’d like to create some kind of original content like this, because it tells a story. I think there are so many stories at Brooklyn College that could benefit from being told and preserved in this way. Your office décor is interesting! Old vinyls, bobbleheads, Pokémon… The vinyls were left over from the previous staff member in this office. And I respect the classics, so I left them. As for the rest, I’m a giant nerd. I’m big into Comic Con, cosplay, that kind of thing. You can find me online as Nate the Great. I love dressing up. I love diving into nerddom. If my bosses would let me decorate the library every year for Halloween—and every holiday—I would. I’m just festive. Last year for Halloween, I came to work dressed as Biggie Smalls. I had a fake Coogi sweater and everything. Sometimes I’m just a clown at heart and I have to work at being professional. I’m glad to be in an environment where it isn’t so stuffy. This place suits me.
