Macalester College, a private undergraduate liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota, founded in 1874, announced it has updated its Weyerhaeuser Hall boardroom with Shure Microflex MXW8 wireless desktop base transmitters and MXW415LP/C gooseneck cardioid microphones.
The university, which emphasizes academic excellence in the context of internationalism, culturalism, and service to society, decided to revamp the dated administration building’s AV system to better support an array of meetings, including board of trustees, alumni board, reunion committee planning, and president’s Council gatherings.
Weyerhaeuser Hall was originally constructed in the 1920s as a library, with little consideration given to acoustic integrity. This created an ongoing challenge for meeting participants and the Media Services support staff.
With this challenge top-of-mind, the Macalester College team turned to Henry Gil of Alpha Video & Audio, who was tasked with finding a cost-effective, reliable, flexible, and aesthetically-pleasing wireless microphone system capable of functioning in a crowded RF space.
“While Weyerhaeuser Hall is a time-honored building and a reminder of Macalester College’s rich heritage, it was absolutely critical to find an AV solution that was not only portable and wireless, but also meshed well with the building’s aesthetic appeal,” says Mark Eggert, media services technician at Macalester College. “Overall, we couldn’t be more pleased with the system provided by Shure. It’s easy to use, works very well for our specific needs, and can withstand some of the previous AV clutter already in place.”
Before the new Shure Microflex wireless equipment, meeting participants in Weyerhaeuser Hall were required to share eight handheld wireless microphones among a maximum group of 32 participants, which wasn’t conducive for productive meetings.
Given the nature of the meetings taking place, participants needed the ability to quickly make comments to the group or to those around them, which required a microphone system that enabled these interjections and featured a mute mechanism. Knowing Shure’s Microflex wireless desktop base receivers with 15-inch gooseneck cardioid microphones would be an ideal solution to the project, Alpha Video recommended 15 of the base transmitters and microphones.
“The Shure Microflex wireless system was a perfect solution to the University’s particular challenges. Without cabling to worry about, we were able to configure the system to match the unique needs of our room setup and meeting style,” says Gil. “We’ve also found the system’s programmability, computer interface, and ease of setup as key contributors to our success using Shure’s Microflex Wireless system.”
