University committee’s ‘Abele Drive’ proposal rejected by Board of Trustees

A committee created to determine ways of honoring Julian Abele recommended renaming Chapel Drive after the black architect, according to a memo listing committee recommendations.

The University committee, which was chaired by Executive Vice President Tallman Trask, submitted a number of recommendations to recognize Abele’s legacy. Among the recommendations was renaming Chapel Drive after Abele and placing a statue of him on the West Campus traffic circle. Although the committee favored this option, the Board decided to rename the main quadrangle on West Campus to Abele Quadrangle—a measure that was not recommended by the University committee.

Duke Student Government President Keizra Mecklai, a senior who was on the committee, said that she could not remember an instance in which the Board had rejected recommendations from a similar University committee.

“I was very surprised that the quad was ultimately what the Board of Trustees decided,” she said. “I am very familiar with the Board of Trustees. I’ve served on different committees, and I’ve never seen a decision that’s outside of what the administrative team has presented and decided on, at least when I’ve been on the Board.”

Several of the committee’s recommendations detailed in the memo written by Trask, such as installing a plaque honoring Abele in the Chapel, publishing a biography of Abele, purchasing the rights to a mural about Abele and engraving Abele’s name into the Chapel cornerstone, were ultimately adopted.

Abele Committee Memo by thedukechronicle

But the University committee, which was convened in the aftermath of community forums and demands from students made in November, generally felt that renaming Chapel Drive after Abele would be the best way to put Abele “into the common vocabulary” of the University, Mecklai said.

Trask also noted in the memo that relatives of Abele whom the committee reached out to preferred renaming Chapel Drive.

Mecklai added that she was not sure why the Board decided to rename the main quad, which runs from the Davison Building to Clocktower Quadrangle since she does not sit on the Board’s facilities and environment committee, which made the final decision.

“Abele Road would be in your GPS and literally on a street sign,” Mecklai said. “My biggest concern is that I don’t know that [the name of the main quad] will be in the common vocabulary.”

Junior Michael Norwalk, DSG vice president of facilities and the environment who sat on both the University committee and the Board committee that considered the issue, said that the Board decided to rename the main quad instead of Chapel Drive because renaming the quad “never really came up” in the University committee’s discussions.

He argued that had renaming the quad been suggested to the University committee, the idea would likely have been among its recommendations to the Board.

“The symbolism is very similar,” he said. “If you’re on Chapel Drive, that’s the driveway up through the center of campus, up to his masterpiece, which is the Chapel...The quad is symbolic in the same way, it’s just that generally more students use the quad in more everyday language than Chapel Drive.”

Norwalk said he was confident that “Abele Quad” would make its way into students’ vocabulary, and pointed out that advertising for events such as DevilsGate tailgate and Last Day of Classes events would now use the new name for the quad.

A number of other suggestions made by the University committee to honor Abele, some of which would have required the University to spend extra money, also appear to have been rejected at this time. In particular, Trask noted in the memo that commissioning a statue of Abele for the West Campus traffic circle would likely be “a seven-figure effort.” The Board did not accept this recommendation, and also did not approve the recommendation of an academic conference celebrating Abele’s career.

The University will, however, purchase a Odili Odita mural titled “Shadow and Light (for Julian Francis Abele)” that is currently on display at the Nasher Museum of Art. This will cost the University approximately $30,000, but half of that has already been pledged by a Trustee Emeritus, according to the memo.

The University will also fund an annual Julian Abele Awards and Recognition Banquet, which honors the achievements of black community members. The awards were first hosted in 1990 by the Black Graduate and Professional Student Association and are now co-sponsored by the Black Student Alliance and the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture, according to the Duke Student Affairs website. According to Trask’s memo, the annual event will likely cost $25,000.

Although students demanded in November that West Union be renamed “Abele Union,” the University committee did not recommend that, according to the memo. Trask wrote in the memo that the committee believed West Union was no longer Abele’s work.

“Most of us worry that the major transformation undertaken by Grimshaw means that this is no longer Abele’s building,” he wrote. “Almost none of the interior spaces remain as he designed them; three sides of the exterior do.”

Trask added in the memo that other buildings on the main quadrangle considered by the committee for renaming, “do not seem important enough for the statement we are trying to make.”