Nestled in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania, Duquesne University is a private Catholic research university with an enrollment of 6,000 undergraduates. The College of Medicine is opening an osteopathic medical school and identified a need to enhance the communication capabilities in their lecture halls. Ranging in size from 100 to 300 seats, the theater-style auditoriums are equipped with standard tablet/armchair seating. Even with acoustical treatments already in place, when filled the lecture theaters would have a significant amount of background noise that may make it difficult for students to be heard clearly when asking questions. Additionally, instructors may not be able to identify which student the question came from. Due to the dense nature of the subject material and limited instructional time, passing around wireless microphones was considered too much of a disruption.
SOLUTION
The initial request from the College of Medicine was to install individual microphones at each seat throughout the lecture theater. However, given the ubiquity of smartphone usage among college students, the university decided to explore a communication solution using already-familiar technology. Given the size of the user population, the university has deployed multiple VLANs to partition network traffic, so the microphone solution had to accommodate network traversal. “Students are on one VLAN and faculty staff are on another. So for universities to use it, the solution has to be to able to work across VLANs seamlessly,” said Todd Hughes, Senior Classroom Technologist at Duquesne. Crowd Mics fit the bill nicely.
CONCLUSION
Crowd Mics empowers audience interaction by putting a microphone in the pocket of every smartphone owner. The key to Crowd Mics adoption and acceptance at Duquesne was its simplicity. “Go to the app store, download Crowd Mics, and boom. The students already know how to do this and Crowd Mics was very easy for the students to follow without any instructions,” said Lauren Turin, Director of Classroom Technology.
Crowd Mics provided a very cost-effective solution for enabling personal voice communications within lecture halls of varying size at Duquesne. Hughes confirmed “the price is absolutely right for what Crowd Mics can do and what it allows us to do in a large lecture hall.”
A graduate of DeVry Institute of Technology, Doug has been in the Technology industry since 1976 and actively oversees Fearing’s daily operations. Along with his wife, Lois, and three others, Doug started Fearing’s in a 600 square-foot facility in Portage, Wisconsin. In the 25 years since, the company has grown to over 30 employees with offices in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Doug likes to say he’s a “TV Technician with a dream� going back to his history with the family’s original business-Fearing’s TV and Appliance.
Doug values time with family, watersports, hiking, snowshoeing and skiing. In addition to being a devoted member of his church, Doug serves as Board President for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County, Board member of Schools for Haiti and Scripture Chair of the Gideons-Portage camp.
A graduate of MATC, Lois oversees Fearing’s daily book keeping along with various HR responsibilities.
Along with Doug, Lois is deeply connected to community outreach, serving as a Board member and Fundraising Committee Chairperson for Kinship Mentoring of Columbia County. She also serves on the Schools for Haiti Fundraising committee. In addition, Lois’ ongoing passion and commitment to provide care for the elderly comes from her 10-year history of working in a Reedsburg, Wisconsin Nursing home.
Lois enjoys singing, hiking, sunny days on the pontoon, and spending time with her 4 grandchildren.
Ehren drives Fearing’s technology by continually seeking out trends to enhance capabilities while supporting Sales, Engineering and Installation teams. Throughout his years with Fearing’s, Ehren’s talent and vision have joined forces to create a wide variety of projects and strategic solutions that exceed expectation.
Ehren loves music, family time, movies, nature, sustainability efforts and electric vehicles.
With 10 years with Fearing’s and over twice that long in the industry, Ben continues to lead, coordinate, and develop the Commercial AV team.
By consistently delivering an outstanding experience and outcome, Ben contributes to the Fearing’s legacy of long-lasting partnerships that truly make a difference. Whatever the Commercial AV need may be, Ben and team deliver at the highest level.
Ben is an avid fisherman and photographer. He enjoys coaching his sons and other youth.
Chris has been with Fearing’s for 20 years and in the industry for over 2 decades. As a Certified leader in Sales Acceleration and trained in EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating Systems), Chris successfully utilizes his skills to lead the Fearing’s Salesforce. Chris and team are motivated and driven to develop new client partnerships while continuing to reinforce loyal long-term relationships with ongoing Service excellence.
Married for 19 years with 3 children, Chris enjoys skiing, hiking, fishing, boating, hunting, camping and golf. He’s also been actively involved as a Youth Football and Softball coach for his family and others.
