Malcolm X College Integrated A/V System

City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) aims to put every student on the path to upward mobility as the largest community colleges system in Illinois and one of the largest in the nation, with more than 4,000 faculty and staff serving 77,000 students annually at seven colleges and five satellite sites.  In its one hundred years, CCC has transformed the lives of more than one million students through education while continuing to serve as an economic engine for Chicago.

Malcolm X College (MXC) is CCC’s healthcare hub and offers a variety of health sciences degrees, programs, free adult education classes, and special interest courses. In January 2016, MXC opened a state-of-the-art School of Health Sciences that features a virtual hospital and the CCC School of Nursing. The $251 million project, a major investment in Chicago’s West Side, was part of CCC’s five-year, $524 million capital plan to fund major improvements throughout the seven-campus community college system. The new 544,000 square foot campus features upgraded classroom technologies and brand-new teaching and learning facilities with space for health science, general and adult education instruction, student services, and athletics.

As the Center for Excellence in healthcare education for CCC’s Careers (C2C) initiative, the new campus was designed with input from C2C healthcare industry partners, faculty, and staff. It features classrooms that allow for combined didactic and skills training, including a virtual hospital that simulates the healthcare work environment. Close attention was paid throughout the design and construction process to create an energy-efficient building that promotes teaching, learning, student success, and wellness.

As part of the project, CCC selected Level-1 to implement an integrated A/V system for the new MXC campus that included procuring equipment, pre-configuring, programming, installing, testing, and providing training services to support the new system. Level-1 furnished all labor, material, and services to install the complete A/V system as determined by the new campus’ architectural drawings and specifications. This included assessing the conditions of the job site and facilities for delivering, storing, placing, handling, and installing materials and equipment as well as the RF environment for the wireless A/V Ethernet network for all A/V systems.

Level-1’s A/V infrastructure solution for the MXC included outfitting regular and enhanced classrooms, group study rooms, study areas, breakout rooms, conference rooms, and the competition gymnasium with A/V presentation capability on multiple displays with wired and wireless displays sources. Special ‘active learning’ and enhanced classrooms rooms are also equipped with an OFE computer and touchscreen displays integrated into lecterns for annotation with all sources.

The new MXC is now at the forefront of meeting the growing need for healthcare professionals in Chicago with an enrollment of nearly 16,000 credit and non-credit students.