Editor's note: This story is part of a series about the Class of 2027 based on a survey conducted by The Chronicle. You can read more about our methodology and limitations here, or read all of our survey coverage here.
The Class of 2027 is the second class to experience the fully implemented QuadEx system, and the first to experience new tweaks in the system, such as the Quad Cup.
QuadEx is a residential system that links first-year residence halls on East Campus with quads on West Campus for sophomores, juniors and seniors. First implemented in the 2022-23 academic year, it seeks to develop a non-selective community that all undergraduates can participate in while addressing the “abrupt challenges associated with rush” for selective groups, according to University administrators.
QuadEx also aims to support students’ intellectual experience at Duke. Outside of housing reforms, the program has led to new initiatives like Experiential Orientation, which revamped pre-orientation programs for incoming first-years; Sophomore Spark, which provides career and networking opportunities to rising sophomores; and the Faculty Fellows program, which seeks to connect the academic and residential lives of students.
From which Quad communities they are a part of to what they feel about their West Campus connections, here’s what respondents had to say about QuadEx.
Hearing from the Class of 2027 again
Almost half of respondents (48.57%) had “somewhat” or “strongly” favorable opinions of QuadEx, which is about a 7.6% increase from last year. About a third were neutral. While over a quarter of last year’s respondents had “somewhat” or “strongly” unfavorable opinions of the system, less than a quarter of this year’s respondents did (21.78%).
QuadEx perception vs income
The favorability of QuadEx appears to increase as income increases, but only up to respondents with incomes between $125,000 and $500,000. Over half of students in this income category have strong or somewhat favorable opinions of QuadEx. As incomes increase above $500,000, QuadEx favorability decreases, with only about 36% of students with incomes above $1,500,000 having favorable opinions.
Perceived closeness with West Campus Quad connection
We asked students about their perceived closeness to their West Campus Quad connection.
83.57% of respondents felt they were “not very close” or “not close at all” with their West Campus Quad connection. These results are similar to last year’s, in which 87% of respondents noted they felt not close at all or not very close with their connected Quad.
The number of respondents from each residence hall varied. For example, East House only had one respondent, whereas Trinity had 40 respondents. However, the majority of students in each residence hall felt they were "not close at all" or "not very close" with their West Campus Quad connection. About 95% of respondents from Trinity and Bell Tower felt that they were “not close at all” to their Edens QuadEx connection.
While students have continued to feel not very close with their connected Quad, there are continued efforts to strengthen the connection between East Campus residence halls and their West Campus Quad Connections. For instance, the Quad Cup, launched earlier this year, encourages students to compete in games and challenges and attend events to gain points for their Quad.
Transition to living with a roommate
Many respondents felt that the transition to living with a roommate was a mild change. Out of our 252 respondents, 5.95% felt no change in the transition, 58.73% felt the room transition to roommates was mild, 26% felt the transition was significant and 9.1% felt the transition was extreme.
Residence hall vs Sense of East Campus community
Across all East Campus residence halls, most respondents felt some or a strong sense of community on East Campus. However, results may be biased due to the varying number of respondents per residence hall. On the main quad, all respondents from Brown and East House felt some sense or a strong sense of community. The majority of respondents from Pegram, West House and Bassett felt some or a strong sense of community. Wilson and Alspaugh had higher percentages of students feeling there was “very little” or “no” East Campus community — 25% and 28.6%, respectively.
Housing approximately 250 first-years, Trinity had the greatest number of respondents, with 35% reporting that they felt very little sense of community. Respondents from Bell Tower felt similarly, with about 26% feeling “very little” or “no” sense of community. Blackwell, Giles, Randolph and Southgate generally felt some sense of community in their residence hall.
Experiential Orientation
Members of the Class of 2027 were also the second to participate in Experiential Orientation, week-long thematically-based programs ranging from exploring the city of Durham to conducting independent research. 65.4% of respondents were placed in their top-ranked choice, 26% were placed in a program they were “somewhat interested” in and 8.6% were “not at all interested” in their program.
This year, there were a couple of new programs added, including Project Band, Project Global and Project Preseason. The number of responses per program varied, but programs that had a high satisfaction rate last year such as Project Wild, Project Play and Project Waves also had a very high satisfaction rate this year, with over 80% of respondents saying they were definitely the program they wanted. Some new programs had very high satisfaction rates as well, with 87.5% of Project Band respondents saying they definitely wanted the program.
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