When rising senior Justin Greenberg gives Duke tours, he celebrates Crowell Quad, in which he’s lived and for which he has served on the Quad Council. “My joke is always that if you told me I’d be dressing up as a crow for a Duke-sponsored dorm event and kidnapping freshmen,” he says, “I’d tell you I’m going crazy.”
He’s not going crazy, but for Night of the Crows that’s exactly what he did, and that’s a representative story about QuadEx, the program created to improve community at Duke.
Wearing one of those black plague doctor costumes with a long beak, Greenberg and other similarly dressed members of the Crowell Quad Council slipped black envelopes with invitations under the doors of freshmen living in Giles and Wilson on East Campus, then “kidnapped” the recipients – by bus – to a welcoming evening “flock party” in the Crowell Quad on West Campus, where they joined Crowell residents for pizza, bouncy castles and general welcome-to-Crowell Quad foolishness.
But please don’t miss the point. The Night of the Crows is certainly an example of how QuadEx has found its occasionally weird footing at Duke – as is the night the marching band wound its way through the narrow hallways of Few. But the parties and the foolery – the welcome, the meet-your-neighbors – are much more important than the actual dorms and quads.
“It’s not just where you live,” the QuadEx website says in large type, on almost every page, “but how you live.”
QuadEx is the program started in fall 2022 that makes each of the seven quads on West Campus the sophomore-year destination for the residents of two dorms on East Campus. That means freshmen (who all live on East) know where they’ll live in their second year, which removes a source of anxiety and stress that had worried both students and administrators. Fraternities and sororities, selective living groups, living learning communities, quads, dorms – the need to apply for various living choices, most in some way selective, overwhelmed students, and that showed in survey data, where freshmen became measurably less happy in second semester. One of the goals of QuadEx was to reduce that competitive anxiety.
It’s working. “You see a difference from what we were seeing pre-QuadEx,” says Ali Harrison, senior associate dean for residence life. “Our spring-semester first-years and fall-semester sophomores are feeling better about the transition [from East to West], because the selectivity that was connected to their housing is no more.”
Duke – and Harrison – see QuadEx as a wellness program, not just a living arrangement. Yes, Giles and Wilson dorms on East send their students to Crowell Quad for sophomore year, and yes, that removes from freshmen the stress of figuring out how to choose their next living situation while maintaining their first living community. More important, though, is the way QuadEx gives students the tools to create the communities they want.
Ben Adams ’08, senior associate dean of students for QuadEx, says the program exists to make other things possible. The students create the programs – like Night of the Crows, in Crowell, or FewBiza, the Few Quad program that throws a party where its quad is turned into an island resort modeled after Ibiza. Adams uses the metaphor of a mobile phone: The dorms are the phone; the programs are the apps. “QuadEx is the operating system behind the scenes that’s delivering a better product.
Motivated by the concerning statistic that showed freshmen were losing their sense of community when they had to find their next living community, QuadEx has pursued the goal of building community everywhere students go. It starts literally the moment students arrive at Duke, with weeklong experiential orientation programs – choosing among a couple dozen programs that build community through action: Project Waves takes a group to the Duke Marine Lab; Project Habitat helps build a house; Project Wild camps in the mountains.
After that first little family outing, students build community in their dorms, and that’s where QuadEx kicks in. Knowing they’ll live in a particular quad in their sophomore year with mostly the same students reduces stress for freshmen. And each quad has a faculty fellow, who’s something like an aunt or uncle who visits a lot – all part of the goal of integrating community, academics and residences on both campuses.
Taking it farther, each quad on West works to develop its own personality, its own spirit. And that’s on their own. Duke gives them a budget and guidance, says Adams, but the students have stridden in and taken charge of their own communities. “It almost feels like we have this kind of asset-based community development project going on with QuadEx,” he says, “where we’re taking the best parts of Duke and giving the students the leadership and opportunity to flourish.”
Consider Kilgo Quad. Where Crowell has pursued that goth identity with the crows, Kilgo has developed a genial, dad-at-the-cookout vibe with Grillgo, says Noella Barron ’26. “It’s something that’s not super demanding of students.” Grillgo is nothing but a big cookout, and it’s come-one-come-all. Kilgo Quad Council members and residents create community preparing the cookout, but they welcome everyone on campus. “A lot of our programming is, like, we just want people to have a space to be here, socialize and have a nice meal together,” Barron says.
Few Quad is very different. Each quad has colors, a mascot (like Crowell’s crow) and a Latin motto. Few pushes its pink by wearing pink on Wednesdays to spruce up Fun Every Wednesday. “I want our quad to be like, fun, active, friendly,” says Quad Council chair Major Richmond, a rising senior. “FewBiza was our Bricks to Stone event.” Bricks to Stone is a celebratory march up Chapel Drive to mark the transition from East to West, and if there’s a guarantee of a lot of East Campus students on West, Few is going to throw a party.
Richmond also talks about the Few Open Door Game, in which – at certain times – they encourage residents to open their doors to encourage casual conversation and community. As incentive he has invited guests such as the Blue Devil and a portion of the marching band.
Each quad has a faculty fellow, who visits regularly and helps knit together community and academics, student resident assistants and staff residency coordinators. And Richmond echoes Adams: “The students pick the events. The students choose how to advertise. The students are the ones budgeting this.”
And as QuadEx grows better, it also spreads. Adams considers Blue Devil Days – events for admitted students to briefly experience Duke. Instead of having prospective students “come and listen to a panel on the student experience,” Adams says, last year they went to students who had been leaders in the QuadEx experiential orientation programs. “We said, ‘Design an afternoon experience for prospective students where they’re meeting each other and getting to experience Duke, rather than hear and learn about Duke.’” They did – one program about traditions brought them to K-ville and considered Last Day of Class celebrations. Another toured Durham, giving students the opportunity, together, to experience what might be their new home.
It’s all about community. If students have that, they can use Duke’s resources to find whatever else they need.
In the end, QuadEx, says Adams, does its best work when it empowers students and gets out of the way. “When instead of trying to problem-solve, you let students take the best parts of Duke and let them create off of that, riff off of that,” he says. “It winds up being much better.”
Which takes the pressure off any particular QuadEx event or enterprise. The point isn’t that event – the point is building community, says Greenberg. “Just the fact that Duke is thinking about it and going about it in this way. To make every kid feel like they have at least somewhere they could go.
“There’s so many kids that have this sense of community.”
The Seven Quads
CRAVEN
Principal Color: Deep red
Supporting Color: Warm white
Arbor: Willow Oak
Foliage: Cardinal flowers
Fauna: Common Raven
Architecture: “No Evil” corbels
Key Date: Oct. 9, 1928
Significant Numbers: 3 and 9
Motto: “Studia et Circenses”
(Studies and Circuses)
Arch Partition: Triple chevron
EDENS
Principal Color: Deep purple
Supporting Color: Bone white
Arbor: American Beech Tree
Foliage: English Ivy
Fauna: White-tailed Deer Stag
Architecture: Edens Staircases
Key Date: Feb. 19, 1966
Significant Numbers: 7
Motto: “Descendens et Ascendens”
(Descending and Ascending)Arch Partition: Dancetty line per chevron
KILGO
Principal Color: Dark hunter green
Supporting Color: True black
Arbor: Magnolia
Foliage: Tea tree blossoms
Fauna: Eastern cottontail rabbit
Architecture: Kilgo Belfry
Key Date: April 1, 1928
Significant Numbers: 0, 1 and 8
Motto: “Pererratio et Repertum”
(Wandering and Discovery)
Arch Partition: Regular quarterly
KEOHANE
Principal Color: Deep orange
Supporting Color: Deep navy
Arbor: Carolina Red Maple
Foliage: Red Maple leaves
Fauna: American Shorthair Cat
Architecture: Keohane Bridges
Key Date: Nov. 2, 2002
Significant Numbers: 2 and 2
Motto: “Levitas et Gravitas”
(Levity and Gravity)
Arch Partition: Bridge
FEW
Principal Color: Royal blue
Supporting Color: Warm white
Arbor: Eastern Redbud
Foliage: Redbud branches and blossoms
Fauna: Eastern Gray Squirrel
Architecture: Few Tower
Key Date: Feb. 8, 1938
Significant Numbers: 6 and 8
Motto: “Libertas et Disciplina” (Freedom and Discipline)
Arch Partition: Inverted chevron
CROWELL
Principal Color: Golden yellow
Supporting Color: Charcoal black
Arbor: Tulip Poplar
Foliage: Goldenrod
Fauna: American Crow
Architecture: Clocktower and bosses
Key Date: Sept. 22, 1930
Significant Numbers: 1, 3 and 7
Motto: “Ambitio et Humilitas”
(Ambition and Humility)
Arch Partition: Parapet crenelly
WANNAMAKER
Principal Color: Silver gray
Supporting Color: Charcoal black
Arbor: Eastern Red Cedar
Foliage: Blue sage
Fauna: DeKay’s Brownsnake
Architecture: The Griffin and Serpent
Key Date: March 23, 1958
Significant Numbers: 5 and 8
Motto: “Audacia et Contemplatio”
(Boldness and Contemplation)
Arch Partition: Bend