It was my first semester at Duke, and needless to say, I was excited. When I first saw the gigantic, non-descript monstrosity known as Edens Quad, instead of adopting the looks of resignation from the other people I saw moving in, I displayed one of exhilaration. I couldn’t wait to begin my Duke experience.
As a transfer student, I hadn’t had the benefits of Blue Devil Days or freshman orientation to acclimate me to the Duke environment. Besides the fellow transfer and international students, I knew almost no one. I didn’t even know anything about my roommate except for his name. But this was OK, I thought. Duke is a community. It would be really easy to meet new people and to find a good group of friends. After all, my fellow sophomores hadn’t already decided on their social circles, right?
As I settled in to life on West Campus, I noticed the obvious trends among the groups of people I saw hanging out together. There were clearly the frat bros, the sorority girls in their neon shirts, the SLGs and so on. Coming from a fraternity at my previous school, I was not keen on repeating the “initiation process,” and I didn’t really want to join an SLG, either.
I wondered where all the independents were. Besides the obvious recluses and non-social people, there had to be some outgoing, fun people who hadn’t joined a fraternity, sorority or SLG, right?
Where is the community, I wondered? It seemed to me like if you weren’t a part of the greek system or an SLG, your social life was severely restricted. Everyone who didn’t join one of these groups pretty much stayed with the people they met their freshman year. Now that these students were on West Campus, an acute bout of social exclusivity had sunk in—they were not interested on meeting many more new people. I was in a bind—I didn’t want to join a fraternity or SLG, but also found it difficult to enter social circles that had solidified before my matriculation.
My story has a happy ending. I was lucky enough to meet a great group of guys on my floor and eventually things worked out. But my experiences during the beginning of my sophomore year were a bit confusing and frustrating, to say the least. I am sure there are other transfer students who share my sentiments.
The isolation of freshmen on East Campus has the intended effect of creating a sense of community within the different dorms. In a way, it is almost too effective. The result is that freshmen make bonds with their peers that will continue for the rest of their time at Duke, yet they form these relationships almost at the expense of social adventurousness in their later years.
Although some may find the new house model to be almost a forced enrollment in a “house” or pseudo-greek institution, to me it seems like a vast improvement over the previous model. West Campus shouldn’t be used as a site to continue the connections made on East Campus, but rather should be a place where new connections may be made, regardless of affiliation with the greek system or SLGs.
The new house model may also be beneficial in other ways. The current dilemmas with the Football Gameday (which replaced probably the most inclusive event that Duke used to offer, Tailgate) may to a certain extent be ameliorated if these houses are allowed to participate. Instead of breeding a culture of exclusivity for members of the greek system, who are the only ones that can afford the expenses of such an event, different houses should also be able to partake in Gameday events—thus everyone can participate, greek or non-greek.
Certain creativity can also be applied to these houses to also help to differentiate between them. Right now, the only differences between dorms on West Campus are what greek institutions are housed within them, their location, air-conditioning and so on. With the new model, students will be able to create new identities for their respective houses, and can bring students who are attracted to a particular identity together without having to rush, pledge or apply. Before rushing and pledging were used to reinforce our predominant culture of exclusivity by “weeding out” those students that their peers deem to be unworthy, now the new house model will instead include everyone. That, my friends, is community.
I think most people will agree that the West Campus quad model is insufficient to create the sense of community that exists on East. The new model will change the way Duke students live and interact with one another and give them opportunity to meet even more people and have even more great experiences. I just wish I could be around to see the strong, vibrant place that West Campus could become.
Milap Mehta is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Friday.
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