Drexel University Gerri C. LeBow Hall

CHALLENGE

Drexel University’s existing Business School had reached its limits for flexibility and adaptability and the University embarked on a design for a new facility, in its place at the heart of the campus. A signature program, the Business School desired to set the standard for innovative, flexible and technology-rich education on campus. The resulting 12-story building provides opportunity to gather socially and for collaborative study, in 19 student collaboration rooms, two quiet study areas, and 3,500 square feet of student social space, all with integrated AV and IT solutions. The third floor houses the Baiada Institute for Entrepreneurship. The building houses a 300-seat auditorium and 100-seat lecture hall, a 160-seat meeting room, group study rooms, and a finance trading lab. The building’s upper floors contain faculty offices interspersed with seminar rooms. The top floor houses the Dean’s suite and a boardroom that overlooks Center City Philadelphia. Classrooms are concentrated on the lower three levels of the building providing standard AV technology and furniture.

SOLUTION

Standard classroom design provides faculty with a predictable set of tools in each classroom, reducing service calls to the support staff. Each classroom contains VTC capabilities for remote lecture or third party engagement, dual projectors allow for the video stream and lecture presentation to be viewed simultaneously. At the core of the classroom design are either DGX16 or DGX32 digital media switchers. The flexibility of the DGX line allowed the college to consolidate classroom control, reducing the need for AV closets, with each closet serving two or three classrooms. Each podium uses a MXD- 700 7" touch panel for standard control. Finally, a signature trading lab houses a DGX controlling 42 desktop displays, 2 projectors, 2 confidence monitors, 2 televisions to provide a crown jewel to this prestigious program.

IMPACT

"The new business school project came online 6 months prior to the original opening date. Due to room standardization, classroom installations were streamlined and other spaces have come online during the first 6 months in operation."

– Matt Stocum, Associate Director of Technology