Duke students got a new curriculum and a brand new housing model in the first years of the decade, altering academic and social life on campus.
Curriculum 2000—introduced in 2000, of course—was implemented to add breadth to Duke students' knowledge. It set up a complex matrix of graduation requirements (way more complicated than the current areas of knowledge and modes of inquiry system), forcing all students in Trinity to take foreign language courses for the first time and creating Writing 20.
It also forced professors and administrators (such as Bob Thompson, then dean of Trinity College, pictured in the middle above) to undergo the lengthy process of figuring out which requirements were met by each of Duke's 3,000 courses. And it forced the Spanish department to hire new professors to teach the hundreds of new students enrolled in introductory courses.
But the curriculum's requirements were confusing and onerous and prevented students from double majoring. (They also led, of course, to the creation of non-major some might say easy courses.)
In 2004, Duke changed things up again. It lightened the modes of inquiry and areas of knowledge requirements, but added a math requirement (under the original plan, students could replace the single required math course with a natural science).
Just as the class of 2004 was the guinea pig for Curriculum 2000, it also got to be the first to experience the decade's new housing system, featuring the Quad Model.
(In 2004, three years after its unveiling, an article asked "What is the Quad Model?" and found that neither admins nor students really knew... but our best try is below.)
With the arrival of Larry Moneta (the smiling vice president for student affairs on the left, above), Duke required all sophomores to live on West Campus and worked to create communities within the quads. Residence coordinators were hired to help, and in 2002 Duke started linking freshman dorms on East with quads on West.
That system sucked for freshmen in Southgate and Randolph, who were then required to live in Edens sophomore year, and it was later dismantled.
Duke is still struggling to make the best of housing on campus, shuffling fraternities, considering a new dorm, and dreaming of a far off New Campus while working to make Central a bit more appealing.
A new curriculum and housing model were number 5 on our stories of the decade list. These are the issues and events that made headlines for weeks at a time over the last ten years, those that sparked the most debate on campus and beyond, and the ones that we believe will continue to shape our coverage in the years to come.
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