Editor's note: The article below is satire.
After receiving countless complaints about the short period between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, Duke finally decided to extend this year’s break to March to save students thousands of dollars on tuition and travel costs. It will also give professors more time to procrastinate when posting final grades.
However, a close friend from the Housing & Residence Life (HRL) department told me that Duke’s intentions are actually quite sinister. The plan is for HRL to send an email Dec. 16 at 10 a.m. to let students know that regardless of whether they are returning in the spring semester or not, all possessions must be gone by 10 p.m. that night.
This is because Duke is turning the potential tuition loss into a money-making machine. They plan to convert all Duke dorms into Airbnbs so that members of the general public can get the "Duke student experience" during the winter sports season.
Duke isn’t going to change anything within the dorms so that the Airbnbers staying there can truly live like a student: no air conditioning, loud doors and no bathroom soap. The Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club is unhappy about this new idea and wants potential game-goers to know that they have ample soap and quiet doors for the guests.
After the Washington Duke Inn fired back, Duke decided to provide all residents with a few essentials. Each room will be equipped with an unclaimed, stained comforter from Duke’s yearly donation bins, a shower caddy, size 14 shower shoes and a roll of single-ply toilet paper in case the bathroom runs out, as Duke’s hardworking maintenance staff will also get paid vacation during the break.
The base price for all dorms is $500/night, even if you’re a student who opted in for winter break housing. Though, people assigned to the Bassett dorm get a $100 discount and a $5 meal voucher for having to sleep in the moldy rooms.
An exciting perk of this new housing system is that each dorm will have its own unique itinerary, with activities both in its own dorms and throughout campus. Within each dorm, some authentic Duke student activities on the itinerary range from finding stolen batteries for the Kilgo and Craven common room TV remotes to searching for missing common room furniture in nearby dorms.
The campus activities will give visiting dorm residents the chance to explore Duke’s world-class dining facilities, academic buildings and sports venues.
Ever heard of Disney’s Epcot Park’s "drinking around the world" activity? Well, now the Blue Devil Airbnbers can do that at Duke, too! Duke’s dining hall hosts cuisine from around the world: pasta from Italy, various foods from around Asia, Latin American tacos or burritos and many American foods — each with its own special drink. While the Epcot experience specializes in alcoholic drinks, Duke’s ‘drinking around the world beverages’ include SmartWater, Minute Maid apple juice and, if you’re feeling edgy, a zero-sugar Kiwi Strawberry Vitamin Water.
If residents are feeling sluggish from the non-alcoholic drinks, they are encouraged to check out the nearby Allen building, home of English majors, where they can catch a nap during a Shakespeare seminar just like a real student. If they’re ready for an adventure, they can even head out to the LSRC building off of Science Drive to check out the room where both the current head men’s basketball coach and yours truly took CS 94, an introductory computer science animation course. I’m still trying to figure out if I got a better grade than him.
An optional activity is to pirate a "Harry Potter" book online and read it in the Gothic Reading Room, a Hogwarts-esque space perfect for channeling your inner Potterhead. I solemnly swear sometimes the pictures move and whisper "GTHC" to hype up the students during midterms.
Finally, people can visit most of Duke’s sporting venues at no extra cost. Residents can step into fame by being able to swing a bat on both the Jack Coombs Baseball Field and the Duke Softball Stadium, as both programs won the 2024 ACC Championship. They can also play a match at the Sheffield Indoor Tennis Center and swim a lap in the Taishoff Aquatic Center.
However, if they want to visit Cameron Indoor for a meet-and-greet with the men’s and women’s basketball teams, it will cost them an additional $25,000.
Stay tuned for more of Duke's shenanigans when I return next semester as your 2025 Monday Monday...
Monday Monday would like to be the first to tell prospective residents that for an additional $100,000, they can be spun in the air by the MBB team to recreate the iconic 2019 360-degree dunk.
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