The Wizarding World of Duke University
In a quarter century, who will have left a bigger mark on Duke culture: Mike Krzyzewski or J.K. Rowling? The new Quad Arches tempt me to select Rowling and have left the Duke, from which I graduated in 2020, unrecognizable. After this Hogwarts-inspired reform, Universal Studios might as well build another Wizarding World of Harry Potter in North Carolina to follow the ones in Florida and California.
With the Quad Arches, Duke has brazenly and embarrassingly plagiarized Rowling’s Hogwarts houses. For each of the quads, Duke has designed an “arch”, which includes its own unique symbology. On each respective arch, every quad has an animal, similar to Ravenclaw’s raven. Luckily, for the administrators, West Campus already has the conveniently named CROWell and CRAVEN. I wonder which animals Duke chose for those quads?
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Students will eventually get “swag” for their quads in the form of t-shirts and perhaps other sartorial adornments. Orlando tourists can buy similar “swag” for Gryffindor or Hufflepuff at the Hogwarts gift shop at Universal. Consequently, Duke has devolved into a simulacrum of Hogwarts, seemingly devised by someone who queued up in Barnes & Noble in 2007 to buy The Deathly Hallows on its release night.
Ultimately, QuadEx seeks to rid all exclusivity from Duke social life. Of course, we want Duke to practice social exclusion toward its high school applicants every April. Otherwise, our framed pieces of paper called diplomas would hold no value. As high schoolers, we vanquished our academic competition in college admissions, so can we please get a respite from social exclusion for these four short years?
We wanted the historical gravity of the Ivy League but instead got a farcical fantasy playground no different from Universal Orlando. We wanted a land of unicorns but instead got a manure-filled pasture of donkeys with party hats. At least, in Orlando, I can ride rollercoasters and drink Butter Beer.