CASE STUDY

Concordia University Texas

About Concordia University Texas

Concordia University Texas (CTX) is a regionally accredited institution of higher education, offering undergraduate and graduate degrees through a variety of delivery methods, including online and accelerated learning. A privately held, liberal arts university, Concordia is affiliated with The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. It is a member of the highly respected Concordia University System, in which more than 36,000 students are enrolled nationwide.

The Challenge

The Concordia University Texas Police Department (CTX PD) is professionally staffed by full and part-time police officers, commissioned security officers, and student personnel. They operate twenty-four hours a day, but with 389 acres of property, it simply wasn’t feasible for the resources at CTX to watch all of the property, parking lots, new buildings, and people coming in and out of the campus at all times. The campus required a smart system that would act as a force multiplier to help watch areas that they might not otherwise see.

The Solution

Concordia University Texas sits next to a neighboring apartment complex which leads to a lot of traffic coming onto and leaving campus. It was a soft spot and area of concern where they didn’t have the resources to watch it closely. CheckVideo cameras allowed CTX to monitor this area easily by adding a layer of protection to identify suspicious activity and real-life threats in order to minimize potential impact. CheckVideo provided secure access to these cameras for multiple users without adding servers or network infrastructure. A second area of concern for CTX was trying to adequately monitor the parking lots. With the constant influx of vehicles coming in and out, keeping tabs on each parking lot area is imperative for CTX to nurture a safe environment for everyone. CheckVideo cameras were installed to protect the parking lots and decrease the amount of hit and runs that have occurred.

As CTX continues to grow, the need to quickly protect new buildings has become essential. CTX recently joined in on the competitive gaming action with the only collegiate esports team in Central Texas. It is one of 100 colleges across the United States and Canada that have esports teams.

The newly debuted E-Sports arena comes with 12 professional gaming stations for the 15 team roster. The arena houses state-of-the-art equipment. Each player will enjoy a Maxnomic chair and fully equipped station with Alienware technology, including a 240Hz gaming monitor.

Protecting this new and expensive esports arena beyond just equipping it with a card reader was important for CTX. In addition to a card reader where CTX can control who enters and exits the building, CTX is also using CheckVideo as a secondary source of monitoring ingoing and outgoing traffic to keep an eye on equipment and deter theft. CheckVideo includes an industry-first search engine that enables searches in seconds, even for multiple cameras. This makes it possible for CTX to use their video cameras to truly understand activities around the esports arena and deploy law enforcement to provide coverage when it is needed.

One of the most important considerations for a security system spanning such a large campus is the health of that system. The CheckVideo system proactively monitors its own health - continuing to function like new. It checks for bugs and faults and will notify service technicians if necessary. The installation of CheckVideo solutions has expanded capabilities far beyond what CTX initially thought they were going to use it for. From protecting parking lots, to monitoring the e-sports arena, and keeping an eye on the neighborhing aparmtent complex it has grown from 13 cameras to 18 in a very short period of time.

Creating and maintaining a safe learning environment for CTX students and staff, combined with the need to react quickly in an emergency is always top priority.

CheckVideo’s cloud managed system provides a complete solution for CTX, by acting as a force multiplier, alerting officers to issues, and by allowing IT staff to provide a reliable system that is cost-effective to deploy and maintain.

"The online capabilities are great, it’s really user friendly, there hasn’t been a problem with the way that anything works. From ease of obtaining, to ease of install, to ease of use, everything’s fairly seamless and the capabilities are amazing so I’m completely content and would recommend it to people."

— Shane Sexton, Chief of Campus Police