Coming to Duke was a daunting experience. As an international student whose first language is not English, the anxiety to fit in couldn’t be more suffocating. But I never felt desperate or lost. I quickly met people in my hallway and FOCUS classes going through the same challenging changes. That brought us close together, and this new chapter of my life soon didn’t seem so stressful. That’s when I found the first community I felt I truly belonged at Duke: my freshman dorm, Southgate.
Soon, I had established meaningful connections with my fellow residents and found a valuable, caring mentor in my faculty-in-residence. Every night, I found myself excited to go back to my dorm and meet my new friends in the common room or the kitchen. It was truly one of the best parts of my freshman year. University officials promised me this community would be preserved for the rest of my college experience. After all, isn’t that what QuadEx is all about? They made me look forward to continuing living in that fun, inclusive and welcoming community. From their messaging, I felt as if it was already a reality on West Campus quads.
Well, it was not.
Last semester — the first of my sophomore year — I saw that community I loved so dearly completely vanish. I don't see my Southgate friends anymore. We grew apart. I'm in a hallway full of strangers. Last semester, after joining Quad Council to foster connections in my new home, I was heartbroken to see most of our (and other residential) events empty. Sometimes, people might even come for the free food and mingle for three or five minutes, but leave right after that. That leaves no room for actual bonding. Efforts to build a cohesive quad community have been largely ineffective. When a big QuadEx event happens on West Campus, the only (few) people who show up are all from West Campus. The same goes for those on East Campus, with barely any upperclassmen caring enough to go.
I don’t blame them. Few is not Southgate. Southgate has about 140 residents, three common spaces and two entrances, making it perfect for community-building. Few, on the other hand, has 430 people spread across maze-like hallways on 13 different floors, nine different entrances and 10 small common rooms. How do you find community in a place like that? You couldn’t fit all residents in our largest common room if you wanted to. There are not even enough beds for all the Southgate and GA sophomores and juniors. Juniors in several dorms, committed to their quads, have been kicked out to Swift due to the lack of space. Upperclassmen are simply not there to pass on “quad traditions” to sophomores. There is little actual interaction between classes — a pillar of QuadEx.
From my conversations with friends in other dorms, this is not an isolated experience but rather a staple QuadEx feature for many: large residential buildings devoid of any meaningful community that lead to isolation and loneliness. Wasn't QuadEx supposed to develop the exact opposite? What happened to belonging and inclusivity?
Duke will tell you that the residential system before QuadEx was much worse. But was it? In a 2022 Chronicle article, Jackson Prince, Trinity '19, said he realized a need for housing reform because “there were times he felt out of place, like nights he wasn’t invited to members-only Wayne events and found himself alone in an empty Crowell section.” Sounds familiar? Well, this was Duke in 2016, and it is today’s QuadEx Duke as well. In fact, because most Selective Living Groups (SLG) and Greek life are now removed from campus, more social events than ever tend to happen off-campus, leaving those who are not invited alone in their empty Crowell sections.
The truth is that Duke has not “moved from a culture of selectivity” as university administrators tend to believe. Greek life still has a powerful presence in social life, and interest in joining it has increased for the first time in years with the Class of 2026. Although we have yet to see if the trend continues this year, it’s worth considering whether people are looking for alternatives to find a community in college. And unlike in Prince’s time, with most Greek groups disaffiliated, Duke has little control over these organizations and their off-campus parties, which can be both inaccessible and a concern for their Durham neighbors.
On top of that, many Living and Learning Communities (LLCs) are still selective. The same applies to dozens of campus clubs and organizations. Although bound by the constraints of selectivity, these communities maintain their closeness and tight-knit connections by keeping relatively low membership, which is essential as demonstrated in my earlier comparison of Southgate and Few. If university officials are not fighting them like other selective living groups, then the problem must not be selectivity itself.
Nor does it need to be. SLGs have been historically as ethnically, economically and socially diverse as non-selective housing, promoting belonging and inclusivity to many Duke students. I’ve heard more than one story of people who only felt like they belonged at Duke after finding haven in one of these selective communities. Are their experiences and feelings not worth preserving? If Duke can afford to have other selective living and non-living groups, Student Affairs should consider reforming its residential program to protect and house communities that have consistently given the sense of home they are mostly failing to offer through QuadEx.
Duke’s response to these arguments will be the same as it has been since QuadEx’s announcement in Fall 2021. They seem convinced that this is a process that will take time. That if they heavily invest in telling students their quad communities matter (with events like Bricks to Stone and Quad Cup), those quad communities eventually will. They certainly succeeded at that in 1996 when President Nan Keohane made East Campus an all-freshmen campus, generating immense student backlash then regarding what is currently one of the most celebrated residential reforms in Duke’s history. College administrators might think the same will happen to QuadEx.
President Keohane, however, reaped early positive results two years after her reform. Two years into QuadEx implementation and we are worse than where we started, with nearly zero residential excitement on this campus. The dorms are too big. There aren’t enough beds for everyone. Nights are eerily quiet with no parties in sight. These residences have never looked so lifeless. Unlike schools like Yale, UChicago and Harvard, Duke’s West Campus was not built to support residential colleges. It’s time for Duke to accept this.
Duke’s residential system has been a topic of contention for years. Every decade, there’s a different housing reform, only for some people to continue to be left outside of the social scene. It has never been perfect. It needed adjustments. Although I believe there are positive aspects in QuadEx — like Experiential Orientation and more certainty about housing for sophomores — I’m afraid its attempt to solve the pains of residential life might have made them worse. It has not eliminated selectivity at Duke. It is driving social life further away from campus and targeting active, inclusive communities in the process. It is failing students, like me, who are losing their freshmen dorm communities despite the promise that wouldn’t happen.
How many more students does QuadEx have to fail before our leadership realizes the need for its urgent, immediate reform?
Gabriel Reis is a Trinity sophomore.
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