Education, Art & NASA, Oh My!

When you sit down and try to think of truly captivating people, celebrities and famous people are obviously first to come to mind, right? But what about the “local celebrities” that are right under our nose? Enter Tim Needles. Needles is a high school art teacher turned college professor, but Needles is not only an educator. He’s also a publicly displayed artist, published author, an Adobe Creative Educator, TED x Talk speaker, a NASA Solar System Ambassador, recipient of many awards and also has accumulated over 15,000 followers across all social media platforms.

Due to Needles’ intense schedule, a Zoom interview sufficed for our meeting. When asked how he got himself into the position he’s in today, with so many options to choose from, he simply said “I find that the more stuff you do, the more that comes to you”, talking specifically about how he got his role as a speaker for TEDxTalk, but also emphasizing this for all of the things he does. He said that he got his job at Adobe simply by reaching out to them and “asking them for money”. Needles created a non-for-profit film festival for his students to display their work and when he called Adobe, asking if they’d supply any prizes for the participants potentially, they became really interested in their and his work and eventually asked him to work for them. “They were so interested that they invited me to a conference and then they hired me. So, I find that by being open and curious you end up with a lot of interesting roles” said Needles.

Some “interesting roles” that Needles has found himself in is as a journalist, when he used to interview many celebrities like James Franco, Susan Sarandon, Elvis Costello, Jonah Hill and many more. “It’s always been kind of a fun thing,” said Needles when he spoke about all the people he’s gotten to meet. Aside from his work in journalism and Adobe, Needles also currently works for NASA. He said that when he started writing his book, he actually contacted some NASA employees for input and they got really into it. “It's fantastic because you get to learn about all of these aspects of NASA that you weren’t aware of. Besides the obvious where they're hiring scientists and engineers, they hire artists who solve creative problems and then you get weekly updates on some of their projects and just really interesting things.”

For as long as he could remember, he’s always been interested in art and expressing his creativity. “I’ve always done work as an artist so I worked in different capacities. I did some illustrations for magazines” said Needles. He also said that when he went to school he focused a lot more on writing and then got into photography. Needles is the author of the published book, Steam Power: Infusing Art Into Your Stem Curriculum. In the book, Needles talks about his favorite projects that he’s done with his students and how to execute them, with additional projects being offered on his website, www.timneedles.com. Previous students of Needles have expressed their gratitude for how he taught. Graham Cono, who had Needles as an art teacher at Smithtown High School East back in 2013 during his sophomore year said “he was creative, he did a lot of community engagement with art and he engaged with his students a lot. I did think he was an interesting person”. Another former student of his, Johnna McElroy, who had him as a freshmen in 2012 said, “he was quirky, he was fun and really incredibly passionate about what he did”.

Upon conversation with Needles’ former students, they expressed that they weren’t surprised that he ended up as a college professor, with one saying “I think looking back, he felt more like a college professor and not a high school teacher.” When asked to elaborate, the student said “high school teachers should inspire students, but we’re (the students) forced to be there regardless, so it gets tough. College professors I feel are more inspired to inspire us, because we chose to be there and want to pave a better future for us, and I feel like Mr. Needles always tried to inspire his students even in high school”. Needles felt like Five Towns College was the perfect fit for him, always knowing and hearing about the school. “I really liked the idea of Five Towns and the more I looked into what they offered that I wasn’t aware of so I was like “wow I’d love to be a part of this!” ”.

It was Five Towns’ Film & Video department chair, Michael Prywes, that got Needles in the doors of FTC. Prywes knew Needles for many years before working together at Five Towns, as he served as one of the judges for Needles’ above-mentioned non-for-profit film festival. “I knew him as an arts educator and we became friendly back then. But I also kept tabs on him as a teacher through social media so I followed what he was up to”. Prywes also said that he felt Needles was “transforming the educational approaches” in the arts and STEM. When Prywes became chair of the Film and Video department at Five Towns, he needed teachers for his department who could “hit a homerun” and he said that he thought of Needles immediately. But, there were some scheduling conflicts with Needles & the Film and Video classes. “I already had a schedule in place but he couldn’t fit it in his schedule because he was about to get his doctorate”. So how did Needles end up as a professor for a Mass Communications based class? Mass Comm chair, Holli Haerr has expressed to Prywes about how she needed a teacher for a class called “New and Emerging Media” and that no time had been set for it yet. Prywes said that he said to Haerr “oh, you need to speak to Tim Needles!” and the next thing Prywes knew, Haerr came back and said “I hired him!”.

Despite Needles’ intense schedule, he’s still able to balance his many jobs, his art and his personal life. Needles said that COVID really changed things and how he worked and actually opened him up to more opportunities thanks to Zoom and video conferencing. When asked how he balances everything so well though, he simply said “That is the best question and I don’t even know the answer. I guess I’m just really passionate so I tend to do lots of stuff.”