Duke recently announced a new residential plan, QuadEx, which will connect the East Campus freshman dormitories to one of seven quads on West Campus. As QuadEx is being launched, we might look back at another time when residential life underwent a massive change.

When, back in 1995, Tallman Trask III was emerging as the likely choice as Duke’s executive vice president, law professor James Cox was chairing the search committee. He did what search-committee chairs typically do: He called an administrator at the University of Washington, where Trask was then working, to check him out.

We are now approaching the 100th anniversary of the founding of Duke University in 1924. As we celebrate this milestone, it’s worth reflecting on how we came to have our two distinctive and beautiful campuses—and how different they could have looked.

PALE SMOKE seeps from holes in the roof of 1915 Yearby Avenue. Minuscule flames lick the eaves tentatively, cautiously, like swimmers dipping their toes in cold seawater. Firefighters from the Durham Fire Department stand by their trucks. They’re waiting for the fire to grow before they go in.

In May, students moved out of their Central Campus apartments for the last time. The buildings are now being razed, and the future of Central Campus is uncertain. Over its nearly forty-five-year lifespan as part of our university, the Central Campus apartments remained the same, but the vision for what they could be changed as the years passed.

I was moved by the profile piece on Sandy Darity [“Sandy Darity Has Some Thoughts About Inequality,” Spring 2019].

Nowhere on the Duke campus is spring more joyously revealed than in the Sarah P. Duke Gardens. The space comprises four distinct gardens that offer delights throughout the year. We asked the curators of each garden to pick a favorite plant species blooming within.

It won’t surprise anyone that the new Duke Cancer Center contains the most advanced technology around for diagnosing and treating cancer. Some of the standout features of the $235 million facility, however, are decidedly low-tech.