Students have defined it as everything from "that Yale living system" to "the Central project" to "some housing push by the administration." But after two and a half years of living with it, many people are still not quite sure what the quad model is supposed to accomplish.
The quad model. Students have defined it as everything from “that Yale living system” to “the Central project” to “some housing push by the administration.” But after two and a half years of living with it, many people are still not quite sure what the quad model is supposed to accomplish.
From freshman to seniors, selectives to independents, off-campus to on-campus, Duke students were unable to nail down a concrete idea of what the quad model was and how it affects their residential experiences. This inconsistency is not exclusive to the student body, as the administration has struggled to produce a unified definition of the ever-elusive quad model.
“The quad model? I don’t know anything about it,” four sophomores said in unison, shaking their heads apologetically. Leigh Jester, also a sophomore, echoed the sentiment. “The what model? Oh, is that the Central thing?”
When the quad model debuted two and a half years ago, it was part of the plan to house all sophomores on West Campus. Now, the administration loosely defines the quad model as a residential paradigm that centers undergraduates’ housing and social experience around the University’s six quadrangles. Students who understand the goals, however, claim it has yet to create any quad-wide community.
Undergraduates claim that they enter their quad with a circle of friends and rarely meet new people through the quad. “I identify with my friends in the quad, but not the quad itself,” said junior Stephanie Weber, who has lived in Craven Quad for two years.
Junior Emma Stevenson said this cliquishness leads to a lack of participation in quad activities. “It’s not where I would go to meet new people,” she said. “I would go to a barbecue to get food, not to make new friends. I mean, no one else is going there to meet me.”
Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta, the original engineer behind the residential model, said the quad model provides a larger social network in which students can operate. “Quads are like neighborhood associations,” he said. “The quad can always get together, but your real social life exists in the house around you.”
Several inherent structural problems with West Campus, however, have prevented students from fully embracing their quads.
The architecture of the West Campus dormitories is not conducive to building community. Currently, the multitude of fire doors and the lack of common space prevent student interaction. “As my quad is right now, I could go the entire year without seeing someone on the opposite side of the quad,” said sophomore Matt Levy, who lives in Few Quad.
Indeed, the physical composition of a quad contributes significantly to its sense of community. Residents of Kilgo Quad—which was recently renovated with the quad model in mind—identify more with the other members of their quads. “I’m not entirely sure what the quad model is,” sophomore David Walker said, “but I certainly enjoy Kilgo and the community feel that is has to it.”
The existence of selective living groups and fraternities within the larger quads also compromise the model’s potency because these tight-knit student groups do not often look outside their organizations for residential social life. Students said quad-wide events are often dominated by these groups.
Students have also said it is difficult to form new bonds with people during their sophomore years, when they already have established friendship groups. The current housing crunch also prevents many students from investing in their quads, as they know they will likely have to move junior year.
How quads began
Since Fall 2002, when the Board of Trustees voted to focus West Campus around quadrangles, West Campus housing has gradually shifted from a traditional house model, which based residential life on individual entryways, to the quad model, in which students’ residential experience centers on the six quadrangles on West.
Several large residential life changes accompanied the new paradigm. Most importantly, sophomores would all be housed on West, rather than scattered across the University. Additionally, all of the selective houses were moved off Main West Campus and placed throughout the quadrangles. Six professional live-in staff known as residential coordinators were hired by Residence Life and Housing Services to help facilitate quad life. Finally, Quad Councils were created to act as liaisons from the residents of the quadrangle to RLHS staff.
Administrators hoped that this new residence structure would create communities to supplement, rather than supplant, residents’ intimate circles of friends. Students, however, do not always view the model in that light.
“Most students are confused about how the quad model affects their daily life,” Campus Council President Anthony Vitarelli said. He emphasized that with the quad model students receive more resources and programming funds but they lose a “sense of intimacy” that was implicit in the house model.
Quads are directed at sophomores, and, by the nature of the housing system, they fail to include many juniors and seniors who are unable to fit into the limited housing on West Campus. The proposed Central Campus renovation aims to create a place for juniors and seniors, administrators said.
Ultimately, a growth model will emerge, with freshmen living on a support-loaded East Campus, sophomores on a more autonomous West Campus and juniors and seniors on an intimate, private Central Campus. The four-year experience will echo students’ growth and maturity levels.
A muddled definition
While both top-ranking administrators and RLHS agree on the basic residential foundations of the quad model, there is discordance about why the model was implemented. As a consequence, various pieces of the administration express conflicting views about their future role in developing the system.
Most administrators agree that the new residential paradigm was implemented mainly to alleviate the disjointed nature of the sophomore residential experience. Many sophomores felt lost and forgotten after a unifying freshman year on East Campus, said Deb lo Biondo, assistant dean of students.
Executive Director of Housing Services and Dean of Residence of Life Eddie Hull said the previous residential system, in which independent students often ended up in undesirable housing, was alienating. “Students feel marginalized by the selective living groups,” he said. “The popular belief is that what goes on on West Campus is what everyone wants, but some students say there are things on West that they would like to change.”
Officials agreed that the eventual success of the quad model lies mainly in the hands of the students.
Moneta said all that remains in order to strengthen the quad model is student interest and ownership of the new system. “There will be no more policy changes,” Moneta said. “It’s all about seasoning and letting this take whatever shape the students want.”
Hull, however, said the growth of the quad model depends on a “blend” of student engagement and administrative policies. “It’s a combination of answering the question of what we want to accomplish and what’s necessary to get there,” he said. “It’s possible that policy may be needed to get there.”
Where quads are headed
The definition and implications of the quad model have started to come together as the administration has begun to create a unified vision for West Campus—and for all residential life.
Associate Dean of Residence Life Joe Gonzalez is creating an advisory body that will consider the concept of the quad model and develop strategies to bring it to fruition. The committee—composed of students, student affairs representatives, RLHS staff and faculty—will begin its discussions next spring.
Administrators hope to increase student resources in the quads to boost student participation in the new residential system. Lo Biondo and other administrators hope to add several quad-based programs: tutoring in various subjects, a faculty-in-residence, properly insulated music practice rooms and possibly a quad course—a class similar to current house courses.
Quad Councils, the local student governments, have begun to serve as outlets for students to voice opinions about events and implement programming to make each quad intrinsically their own.
Although many students still feel the quad model forces artificial friendships, President Richard Brodhead assured students that the University does not intend to dictate their social lives. “Of course everyone will have their smaller communities, but you don’t want to have a smaller community be the only thing there is,” Brodhead told The Chronicle earlier this year. “You want to create more places where people could more naturally have the continual experience of meeting and mingling and forming relationships with people much more broadly than the subset of their friendship groups.”
But while students wait for larger scale changes that will put the quad model into context, many still fail to see quads as an integral part of their residential experience and social life at Duke. “It fails to affect the social scene would be my point,” sophomore James Hicks said. “Besides the people I block with, I don’t know any of the people in my quad, and I don’t feel any sort of bond of them.”
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