A Quad Honor for One Who Changed Campus Life

There's a new member of the list of campus quads named after university presidents. In an announcement that was several months in the work, the university on Tuesday dedicated the quad in front of the West-Edens Link (WEL) residence halls after Nannerl O. Keohane.

The project was the work of separate groups of students, administrators and trustees who all worked independently. It's a Duke tradition that residential quads be named only after presidents, but no president since Hollis Edens has been so honored. (Douglas Knight, Terry Sanford and H. Keith H. Brodie all have other parts of the university named after them.)

At the ceremony in the McClendon Tower, four students told Keohane that the dedication was well deserved.

"Naming a residential quad after President Keohane makes perfect sense because she taught us that scholarship is not just a four-year deal done in a classroom but a steadfast way of life," said senior Katie Mitchell. "She taught us about education in its most wholistic form. Learning is not just something you did, but it is the person you became."

After the ceremony, Keohane and her husband, political science professor Robert Keohane, pulled down a sheet covering the Gothic-lettering plaque naming the quad after her and then sat on one of the several benches now painted with her name.

"This means a lot to me," Keohane said. "It means a lot to me that a lot of different groups all worked separately toward this. ' I will always have a special place in my heart for this quad."