St. Joseph's University Uses Technology to Carry Students Into the New Millennium.

     From the outside, Mandeville Hall would look at home at many universities. It is an impressive, newly built structure that melds the architectural themes of both St. Joseph's traditions as well as its modern-day commitment to being a leader in higher education. Students attending the school of business located in Mandeville will pass in varying degrees of haste, some strolling leisurely after a class, others moving with purpose so as not to be late. It is a common scene and one that gives the onlooker little indication of how unique this building truly is.

     Upon following the students inside, however, one realizes that within Mandeville Hall lie some extraordinary sites. Dominating the atrium-style main lobby is a 100-inch multi-monitor Toshiba video wall built into the detailed millwork. The display comes alive with scenes alternating between a virtual walkthrough of the campus to live events from within the Hall. Adjacent to the video wall are interactive monitors that display campus information, with topics and destinations selected by a touch of the screen. Wandering past the video wall into a classroom, one might find an instructor involved in a Multipoint distance education class. Selecting media device options on an LCD control panel, the instructor utilizes the cutting-edge technology to enhance the lesson and benefit not only the students at hand, but possibly others hundreds or thousands of miles away.

     Mandeville Hall is the newest building at St. Joseph's Jesuit University in Philadelphia. Besides being the home of the Erivan K. Haub School of Business, this three-story, 88,000 square-foot structure showcases the use of advanced A/V technology in higher education like few institutions, if any, ever have before.

     "Within Mandeville Hall is the technology that by design will be used to enhance instructional opportunities and allow teachers and presenters to positively impact locally and on a global scale," says David Lees, director of instructional media services. Lees served with a variety of faculty members on the committees that helped form ideas for the building. Reverend Nicholas S. Rashford, S.J., president of St. Joseph's University, was instrumental in guiding the development of the building. "Overall, what we wanted to do was to create a traditional classroom environment, but one that would cut a path for the next millennium, with the technology in the background, but enhancing the experience incredibly," says Father Rashford.

     To turn Father Rashford's vision into a reality, RJC Designs Inc., technology consultants of Glen Burnie, Maryland, were contracted. Father Rashford's vision was to utilize the latest in technology that would give the university maximum flexibility in use, fulfill instructional-use criteria, allow for various communication paths, and be as intuitive to use as possible. RJC Designs was given a wide degree of latitude in how these goals were to be met, including all of the product and technology integration choices.

Figure 2 - A view of the Teletorium with the 120-inch
screen lowered.
Infrastructure
     Once RJC developed the mechanical, electrical, ergonomic and ventilation requirements to support the plans, the next step was to establish a "master control" center for the Hall. The location chosen was the nearby Barbelin Lonergan Hall, due to its proximity to the campus data processing hub and its fiber connectivity to the rest of the university. "This allowed us to develop a connectivity infrastructure plan to Mandeville and to other future sites on campus," said Bob Mohan, vice president of RJC. "The big picture was to plan for expansion to other areas and the Barbelin location could best accommodate this need."

     Within Master Control reside all external communications portals, control system head ends and source devices, including laserdisk and DVD players, video teleconferencing (VTC) CODECS, and various types of VCRs. Master Control is also the location where all connectivity paths from Mandeville converge.

    Essentially, from the various rooms in Mandeville, multiple paths of audio, video , and broadband leave and return from each room via copper. They then go to a local demark point in the building. These analog signals are then converted to digital for transmission on fiber, which is run to Barbelin. Once there, the signal is converted back to analog and is processed through a 128 x128 matrix switcher. The reverse is true from sends from Master Control to Mandeville. This arrangement allows for complete resource sharing not only between the sources in Master Control, but also within and between rooms in Mandeville Hall.

     Overall media and device control was accomplished through AMX PCTouch applications, which use the university's LAN to link all control panels, including Mater Control's. RJC explains: For example, assume there is a distance class or videoconference going and the presenter is either really technophobic or is a guest not familiar with the system. With the PCTouch all-server scenario, all of the control systems for all of the rooms are interconnected, which means Master Control can take control of any room at any time. RJC Design's connectivity infrastructure plan and AMX make this happen.

     Scheduled media distribution was provided by an AMX Synergy media retrieval system. This allowed St. Joseph's to develop a central media collection and distribution point within Master Control that could be managed and operated by a single person. Aside from helping the university to keep track of the media, it allows the instructors to easily schedule an event or program to be played at a certain time and sent via broadband to a specific destination. The instructor can also control the source device during playback via the control systems, i.e. start, stop, scan, etc., just as if the device was in the room.

   "The Synergy system is certainly more efficient than running portable systems around the building and handing out tapes. Neither does the faculty have to worry about the equipment being there or not. When the instructor needs a program, all it takes is a few mouse clicks and they have it. It's as easy as that," says Lees.

     To allow for expendability within each room, it was necessary that the wiring of Mandeville Hall and connectivity from each room back to Master Control be taken into consideration early. All cable pulls were done during the building's construction, allowing easy access to hallways, equipment closets, and termination points. Even the most basic "electronic" classrooms and seminar rooms were wired for the possibility of being turned into distance learning rooms or areas designed to use more sophisticated technology in the future. Baseband and broadband connectivity was run to all locations within the Hall, utilizing high performance cabling in compliance with the university's interest in future compatibility with digital technology.

     To prepare for equipment installation during occupancy, RJC chose to terminate unfinished cabling throughout the building on ICON blocks and ADC panels. This measure made the eventual completion of each room much more efficient. Working during occupancy is the most difficult scenario to work under for the installations contractor, as well as for the faculty to work around. If at all possible, it is best to plan and coordinate the occupancy and use of the building carefully between the construction aspects and the technology design and installations. Above all, the constructions should neither compromise or run ahead of the technology plan.