According to James King, you shouldn’t know he works at the Kirk Kerkorian Medical Education Building (MEB).
King, assistant director of audiovisual services, says that “AV should not be thought about.” But rather, these tools – and MEB has a plethora of state-of-the-art AV tools – should run so smoothly and be so user-friendly that he does his job completely behind the scenes.
How does King ensure that all AV components in a five-story, 135,000-square-foot building are in top working condition? Attention to detail goes a long way.
In a recent walk-through of MEB’s AV systems, King meticulously tinkers with each screen, speaker, and podium. In a fifth-floor classroom, King plays some light electronic music and paces the room. DJ is not a job requirement for an assistant director of AV services, but King uses the music to test the room’s overhead speakers, pausing under each one to ensure that the audio is clear and even. He notes that one is playing more softly than others and makes adjustments.
For King, MEB represents an exciting venture in his 15-year career working in higher education. During this tenure – he worked at Stockton University in New Jersey prior to joining the school of medicine – he has been a part of 12 brand new builds. However, the opening of MEB marks a "first" in King’s career.
“This is my first time dealing with a building-wide AV over IP solution, so I've read a lot about AV over IP. I've done a couple of small projects of AV over IP, but never anything at this scale,” King says.
For the uninitiated, “AV over IP stands for audiovisual over internet protocol,” King explains. “What that looks like is leveraging the network infrastructure of the building and the school of medicine's network infrastructure, because it allows us to send video and audio almost anywhere in the building.”
Think of AV over IP as the transition from the Pony Express to email. Instead of relying on traditional AV methods such as HDMI cords and switch systems to deliver audio and visual sources, AV can now be transmitted seamlessly through a network.
On top of overseeing this transition, King is responsible for making sure all the tech learning tools in MEB are working properly. This includes the massive 16 by nine-foot screen in the Dr. Barbara Atkinson Forum, the 12 Sectra Tables in the virtual anatomy lab, and the microphones and live video streams that allow instructors to monitor students in the first-floor simulation suite.
During his walk-through, King is particularly attentive to the AV components of the simulation suite. He explains that the Class of 2024 is using the space on Feb. 21 for objective structured clinical examinations (OCSEs). King has worked in higher education for 15 years, and what inspires him to work in the field has always been the students.
“The thing I most enjoy about working in higher education is the students. Students are our lifeblood, and it’s my job to make sure that their needs are being met, that the students can get the education they need. That’s what I really look forward to,” King says. “Whatever that entails from myself and my team, we accept that challenge to make sure that education is happening.”
Ensuring classroom accessibility is another aspect of King’s job that aligns with his passion for supporting students.
“Here at the school of medicine, we record our classes, and then the faculty members have the option to put it into their Canvas course so that students can watch it at a later time if they need to go back or update their notes,” King says. “If the pandemic taught us anything, we need to be prepared for anything. So being able to teach asynchronous and synchronous classes where you have people who can watch from anywhere is very beneficial. This helps make education accessible.”
King’s mastery of AV hasn’t gone unnoticed. He was recently named a Top Comms Influencer by UCX USA. According to UCX, an annual industry conference, the title of Top Influencer goes to “industry and vendor professionals, analysts, consultants, researchers, media, social influencers and top-tech end-users who maintain the largest following on Twitter and LinkedIn and/or hold key influential positions in industry organizations.”
In March 2019, King created a Slack group, “Higher Ed AV/IT,” that is free and open to anyone who works in the AV/IT fields in an institution of higher education. “We have open discussions on equipment, design, and AV,” King says. “There are times when a member who is dealing with an issue will post a question, and other members will jump in and help them figure out what the issue might be.”
This network has amassed hundreds of followers across the U.S., Australia, and Ireland, and it proved to be especially helpful early in the COVID-19 pandemic when higher education AV/IT teams were tasked with moving instruction online. The Higher Education Technology Managers Alliance awarded King’s Slack group the “In This Together” Award in June 2020 for supporting higher education AV/IT techs as they faced the pandemic and the unique challenges it brought to their industry.
Whether it’s supporting technicians through a historic shift in higher education or handling a system transition in a new, state-of-the-art building, James King is happy to lend a helping hand.
