Staff Editorial: The Duke name game

It has long been a tradition at Duke to venerate our greatest luminaries by naming campus edifices after them. The illustrious Charles Evans Alspaugh and William Preston Few have buildings that bear their names, and long-ago forgotten Dean of Students Rick Armadillo Loop now has a whopping three campus eateries named after him. In this tradition, the Campus Council voted Thursday to recommend that the West-Edens Link dormitory be renamed Keohane Quad in honor of departing President Nan Keohane (a recommendation that seemed oddly familiar to us).

In this vein, we at The Chronicle dare to posit some other worthy University super-stars to receive this highest honor.

1. We tried to find something low enough to the ground to carry the name of Provost Peter Lange. Suffice it to say, it was a difficult task. We sent two freshmen reporters out to find something suitable, but one didn't come back, and the other is currently a sophomore. Since we could not think of anything, we propose the Peter Lange Peter Lange, now the shortest, most mobile building on campus.

2. The honeycomb of backpack slots outside the Textbook Store designed to prevent shoplifting will now be accompanied by a coat rack and the Devon MacWilliam Headwear Repository, named in honor of the senior who wears so very many hats.

3. We demand that DUMA (the Duke University Museum of Art) be renamed the CFMA (the Carl Franks Museum of Art). Known throughout the Southeast for his extensive collection of Joan Miro originals and framed "Beetle Bailey" prints, the seven-win head football coach wants to donate his artwork to the University in exchange for a role as special teams coach for the North Carolina School of Science and Math. His generosity and self-sacrificing dedication to the growth of Reggie Love's appreciation for El Greco, make him a perfect choice.

4. In an attempt to lure Bill Clinton to Duke, we propose The Bill Clinton Room in Few Quad. We have engineers working around the clock to get the entire room to spin, and the (necessary) slimming mirrors for the ceiling are being installed as we speak. We considered suggesting that the DSG office be named after him, but we figured it would be too hard to explain the name change to the "Senators" who are still adapting to their own title change from "Legislators." Plus, we couldn't run the idea by DSG President Matt Slovik because he was in the bathroom trying to put on his purple toga.

5. The Chronicle will not be overshadowed whilst the University implements these changes. We are honoring our own favorite Blue Devil by renaming the daily crossword puzzle after the most frequently-covered individual in the Duke community. Today we unveil the Daily "Deuce" Crossword, named after Jonathan "Deuce" Bigelow, who is so ubiquitous in our fair paper that if he has an interesting dream, it makes the front page.

While we have surely missed many deserving people, we think that this is a good start. We here are tired of buildings named after old, dead, white guys--like the Languages Building, The Marketplace and the Chapel.