The independent news organization of Duke University
Marketplace and Trinity Café closed down March 27, after several Marketplace dining staff tested positive for COVID-19. The two eateries reopened on April 12. Julia Anderson, who has worked at Marketplace for 36 years, said she spent the time relaxing and wrapping her head around the COVID-19 outbreak.
Marketplace and Trinity Café have been closed since March 27 after several Marketplace dining staff tested positive for COVID-19. After the closure, first-years living on East Campus have resorted to waiting in long food-truck lines and stocking up on several meals at a time from West Campus vendors.
Elementary school students in Durham Public Schools returned to schools on March 15, and middle and high school students will begin returning April 8. Families can still choose to remain learning virtually. For Durham Public School educators and administrators, this was short notice to begin preparing their schools for students.
Students reflect on a week of on-campus isolation.
Amid the many changes on Duke’s campus necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, one old sight reliably persists: a smiling canine face and her familiar owner. The beloved dog-owner duo—Keith Upchurch, Trinity ‘72, and Nugget, his 10-year-old golden retriever—have promenaded through Duke’s campus since 2012. Since Upchurch retired from the Durham Herald-Sun in 2016, they have visited the University almost every day.
For students coming back to Duke this spring after spending the fall away from campus, the return has been a moment of joyous relief, but also of ambivalence and adjustment.
Much has changed in the East Campus dining hall. Indoor seating is closed for students. Most tables and chairs are wrapped in caution tape. Stickers line the floor, indicating the direction students should travel and the six-foot distance they should keep while standing in line. Workers praised Duke's overall efforts to keep the virus spreading, but said they have been tested infrequently and questioned the decision to put a testing location in the same building.
Hop off the C1 at West Campus, make your way across Abele Quad, and you may sense something’s missing. It’s the upperclassmen. Duke didn’t allow most juniors and seniors to live on campus in the fall, though some have found housing off campus in Durham. Those weathering the semester out of town face a knotted mix of challenges and nostalgia.
Vice President of Administration Kyle Cavanaugh wrote in an email that several million dollars “is the most accurate estimate we have at this point.” He added that at the start of the academic year, the University had “rough cost estimates,” and current expenses “are running within those estimates.”
Duke students are currently allowed limited access to the University’s trademark venues: The Sarah P. Duke Gardens, the Nasher Museum of Art and the Duke Chapel.
With Marketplace closed, students wait for food at a food truck on East Campus.
Students wait at a food truck on East Campus while Marketplace is closed.
