The American College campus is situated in Nicosia at the heart of the city center and is based on three buildings, all next to each other. The buildings are spacious with facilities that enable students to enjoy a successful academic and social life.
The campus comprises of a library, laboratories, cafeterias, a fitness center classrooms and administration and faculty offices. The facilities of our campus are described below.
Eleftheria square
American College campus is right next to Eleftheria Square, the main square in central Nicosia. Eleftheria Square constitutes a significant “architectural intervention” designed by the internationally renowned architect Zaha Hadid. The square reconnects the ancient city’s massive fortified Venetian walls and moat with the modern city.
The moat which surrounds the Venetian fortifications, constitutes central Nicosia’s main park – a focal point for rest and recreation, and a venue for art exhibitions and installations containing both sculpture gardens and sports facilities. Elevated and widened to increase circulation, the moat is accessed by bridging streets – new gateways to the inner city, free of traffic.
The Venetian walls, restored to their former glory, are flanked by palm-lined walkways and are illuminated continuously by night.
The American College library is an integral part of the teaching and learning environment of the College. The library is well-equipped with a wide range of books, academic journals, periodicals and electronic and digital material in order to meet the educational needs of students as well as the professional needs of the faculty staff. The library is specially designed for reading purposes with plastic flooring and double-glazing in order to reduce noise. The library has a large seating capacity and it is ideal for studying in peace and quiet.
The books’ section, with thousands of volumes, consists of specialized books and hard copies of popular journals and magazines covering all areas associated with the College’s curricula. The library’s collection is available to our students and staff on a short and long term loan basis depending on demand. Photocopying facilities are also available during library opening hours. Moreover, the library provides Wi-Fi access.
Library collections are well organized and are arranged for efficient retrieval at the time of need. The referencing system of the library is computerized and can be accessed via terminals found in the library. A user can track down a book by simply entering the author’s name or the book’s title. The user can also search the database by subject so he/she can look at every book that covers a specific topic. The library uses the DEWEY decimal classification system for organizing the collections.
Library staff is always available to assist and advise library users on library issues throughout the library’s opening hours. They will help you exploit the library’s information resources and they are ready to assist with specialized enquiries and can guide you to relevant information sources. During orientation, students are introduced to the library’s indexing system and available facilities.
American College subscribes to online learning resources. The resources contain thousands of online books from reputable commercial and academic presses and millions of citable journal, magazine and newspaper articles on various subjects. Specifically, they contain the full text of thousands of journals, including essential scholarly journals and the most important trade journals. The resources provide access to key trade publications, conference proceedings, market reports, thousands of dissertations, working papers, news sources and much more.
In addition, the online resources provide its users with advanced tools for research and writing such as search tools and automatic generation of bibliographies. These online resources are available twenty-four hours a day via the Internet. Both our on campus students as well as our distance learning students are provided with access to the above online learning resources.
Equipped with state of the art hardware and up to date software, the College computer facilities, among a few of its kind in Cyprus, aim to satisfy the needs of the teaching, research and administration functions of the College. Our high quality integrated technology facilities adequately support the needs of our students, faculty and administration staff and enhance the quality and reliability of the students’ educational experience.
American College recognizes the significance of keeping up with the technological advances in this area, and it vows to continue to lead the way by investing heavily in computer facilities, arming its students with a solid academic and scientific background.
The College has a distributed computing environment, which provides high speed connection to appropriate services and Internet through a number of high performance local area networks (LAN) using a high-speed backbone.
Our facilities are powered by Windows and Unix (Linux) physical and virtual servers to support the E-mail, intranet, distance learning, MS SQL databases, and other services of the College. Network infrastructure is build up in a way that maximizes efficiency and productivity but also ensures the maximum level of data security possible.
Our facilities include switches, backup devices and Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) devices. Furthermore, our infrastructure includes a Unified Thread Management (UTM) appliance as well as a cloud-based antivirus software in order to protect the campus network from malicious intent users and software. In addition, all critical systems are fully redundant so students, faculty and administration staff is provided with a safe and a stable computing environment. Finally, our facilities allow for eligible users to access the campus network remotely.
All American College students and personnel (academic/administrative) enjoy an ubiquitous access to the Internet through the campus-wide Wi-Fi networks. The networks allow users to have wireless access to the Internet from all the College’s campus including classrooms, laboratories, cafeteria and library. Furthermore, our computer facilities include a powerful distance-learning platform. The platform is mainly used by our Distance Learning students and faculty.
The computer facilities include several well-equipped computer laboratories, a computer network laboratory and a computer help desk which is available to assist students, faculty and administration staff.
Computer laboratories
American College has 4 computer laboratories. Every computer found in our computer laboratories provides access to an extensive portfolio of up to date software such as widely used commercial application software, programming languages and other software necessary to cater the specialized needs of all our programs of study.
All computer laboratories are equipped with a heavy-duty network laser printer, a video projector and a projection screen. When computer laboratories are free from classes and they are available exclusively to the students carrying out their assignments, practicing, researching or for exploring the Internet.
Computer Network laboratory
Our computer network laboratory is equipped with all the devices, tools and materials computer network professionals use in the actual field of work, from a simple screwdriver to a complex metal detector. Having in mind the latest technology trends, the lab is equipped with Cisco routers and switches, a firewall, wireless access points and many more.
Furthermore, the lab consists of installation and testing tools for every communication medium used today in network communications, from a simple coaxial cable to the more complex fibre optic cable. Finally, state of the art workstations with all required software utilities for programing, testing and emulation are also installed.
During classes students are separated into groups and teaching takes place with the use of role-playing. In many cases College staff, students and friends of the College are invited as customers and students practice their skills under real life conditions.
The College has a fully equipped bar and restaurant laboratory that is used for practical drinks preparation and food and drinks serving sessions. Classes held in this laboratory give students the opportunity to train in real life situations. Students learn all the practical areas of food and drinks service such as stewarding and dining room management.
During classes students are separated into groups and teaching takes place with the use of role-playing. In many cases College staff, students and friends of the College are invited as customers and students practice their skills under real life conditions. Students often have the opportunity to experience the setting-up and servicing of special functions using the laboratory’s facilities, thus gaining invaluable experience.
A large and comfortable cafeteria is available on the third floor of Red building and is open during College hours.
The cafeteria has vending machines serving cold snacks and drinks and hot drinks. In addition, the cafeteria is used by students for recreational activities during their free time. This includes playing various games such as pool, table football, chess, backgammon, electronic and other games.
It is a congenial place for students to get acquainted and meet with other students and faculty between and after classes. Finally, the cafeteria, which is equipped with professional music facilities, is also used by students for many of their parties and other social events.
A second cafeteria is situated on the fifth floor of the blue building. The cafeteria has a vending machine serving cold snacks and drinks, a vending machine serving hot drinks and a pool table. The cafeteria is open during College hours and it has TVs and a central audio system playing music.
Fitness One is the College fitness center. It is equipped with a number of professional electronic and manual universal fitness machines and separate changing rooms and shower facilities for male and female users of the center.
Equipment for use include leg extension, leg curl, leg adductor, chest press, lat machine, peck deck, free weights, sitting bike, incline bench, decline bench, bicep press, horizontal row bar and treadmill.
Fitness center staff is available to design personal fitness programs, offer advice and supervise weight loss, toning, muscle building and conditioning. In addition, the staff is responsible for instructing gym users on the proper use of all the exercise machines.
Teaching takes place in modern and properly equipped classrooms. Classrooms are equipped with a computer that provides access to the internet, a video projector, an overhead projector, speakers, an electric projection screen, whiteboards and air conditioning units for cool and warm air.
The administration and faculty offices are well equipped with modern equipment such as voice over IP telephony equipment, computers, printers, scanners, photocopy machines and fax machines.
