‘Main Quad’ by any other name

There are many things that cannot be achieved by simply re-naming something. Commemoration of a prominent and deserving figure in the history of a university is not one of them. Unfortunately, the Board of Trustees’ recent decision to rename Main Quad in honor of Julian Abele does not accomplish that most fundamental objective. I never wanted the Board to approach honoring Julian Abele in hopes of remedying racial tensions on campus. Re-naming a building or road cannot accomplish such a task and should not be expected to. All I wanted was for the Board’s decision to give Abele a prominent, permanent place in the institutional memory of this University.

Not only is Main Quad not the best candidate for honoring Abele, but is, in fact, one of the worst. By choosing to rename Main Quad over the many other options (one of which was directly recommended by the Board’s own advisory committee), the Board all but ensured that Abele’s name will never be heard coming from the mouths of future Duke students. He will not join the ranks of Rubenstein, Craven, Keohane, Sanford and countless others whose names are recognized because they are indispensible to students’ vocabularies.

Main Quad will not readily take to a new name. While its origins are unclear, the current name may have evolved into a proper noun from the common formulation “the main quad”. Or it may have been adopted in the same vein as the name “Main Street” has been applied to the central boulevards of towns across America: as a designation of the geographical and social heart of a community. In any case, the name is essential for orienting oneself on West Campus; everything can be located relative to Main Quad—which itself never needs locating because the name alone conveys that information. In contrast, when Keohane Quad was built, it was known initially as “West-Edens Link”, a geography-based name derived from the names of surrounding spaces. The new name, “Keohane Quad” caught on quickly because the space needed a name of its own and had no inherent geographic properties that naturally suggested one.

Students have also relied on the moniker “Main Quad” to express the social centrality of the location in contrast with that of the other residential quads. A 2006 Chronicle article on the evolution of residential life after the implementation of the quad system four years prior relied on this linguistic contrast to convey students’ dismay at the relocation of fraternities and to explain the widespread belief that the moves were made to decrease the visibility of Greek life on campus. “Fraternities and selective houses,” the article reads, “were uprooted from Main West Quadrangle and moved into the inner quads.” The article uses the term “inner quads” in opposition to Main Quad to convey a key implication of the move: that fraternities would recede from a core public position in University life. The name “Main Quad” is a necessary reference point for navigational and cultural conversations alike.

The space that the Board proposes to rename is also much too large for students to refer to it by a single name. Currently, “Main Quad” typically refers to the space to the left of the Chapel between Craven and Kilgo Quads. The Board plans to rename the entire central area stretching from Towerview Drive all the way across to the far-right entrance of Duke Clinics, subsuming spaces currently known by at least three different names in addition to “Main Quad”: Chapel Quad, Clocktower Quad, and Davison Quad. I appreciate the Board’s impulse to apply Abele’s name to such a large space—one surrounded by buildings reflective of his work—as an admirable effort to pay tribute commensurate to his work. Their choice reflects a desire to honor the extraordinary nature of Abele’s achievements, both as the sole architect of our Gothic wonderland and as a groundbreaking figure in an era of deep-seated racial segregation. Despite these good intentions, the fact remains that the space is too big to take a single name. If an event announcement bore the location “Abele Quad” it would be impossible to know where exactly to go and some sections of the proposed Abele Quad are not visible from other sections. Invitations will, out of necessity, have to refer to more specific (if informal) place-names.

Main Quad, unlike other spaces to the left of the Chapel, also does not include any student housing; thus, there will never be reason for students to use Abele’s name in reference to residential life. They will never wonder or look into Abele (as I have about Craven) as the person whose name is emblazoned upon the place they call home.

Finally, in his email announcement of the decision, President Brodhead explained that the Board had decided against renaming West Union for Abele because “except for three exterior walls, [the] building has been extensively transformed from Abele’s original design” and because “Abele’s accomplishment was not any single building, but the whole of the campus.” These reasons are undoubtedly sincere and well-meaning, but make little sense in light of campus naming conventions. Contribution and commemoration should be (and are usually) loosely associated, but naming buildings on campus (especially when the honor is posthumous) has always been done in spirit and has never been intended to encapsulate the entirety of an individual’s legacy. The advisory committee’s concern that “the major transformation undertaken by Grimshaw means that this is no longer Abele’s building,” is misguided. The fact that Abele was an architect and thus could be honored materially does not change that. Abele is not around to design any more buildings; thus, any buildings named in new tributes to his legacy cannot possibly be literally “Abele’s buildings”.

I was disappointed that the Board chose to rename Main Quad (over countless better options) even before learning that, in doing so, they ignored both the recommendation of their own advisory committee and the preferences of Abele’s family. That information only makes the decision even more inexplicable. The committee’s recommendation to rename Chapel Drive would have placed Abele’s name into common use while paying homage to the most famous building he ever designed. The quad, according to a student member of the advisory committee, “’never really came up’ in the University committee’s discussions.” Perhaps that is because, as I have argued, Main Quad is not conducive to renaming. I share DSG President Keizra Mecklai’s concern that the new name will not “be in the common vocabulary” of the Duke community. Despite planning a number of other honors for Abele, the Board seems to have inadvertently bungled the most visible and lasting way of commemorating him.