Residential Colleges of Rice University - Duncan College

Anne and Charles Duncan College is the eleventh college founded as part of Rice's residential college system. Duncan College was named after Anne and Charles Duncan, Jr., long-standing contributors to Rice University who donated money for the new college. The college was conceived jointly with the adjacent McMurtry College as part of Rice's Vision for the 2nd century, which includes plans to increase the size of the student body by 30%. Duncan opened its doors on August 16, 2009, right in time for O-Week 2009, which saw the arrival of the first Duncan freshman class. Due to renovations in Baker College and in order to help the new college adapt to the university, Baker College students lived in Duncan with the first freshman class. This led to the joint name of "BaDunc" for sporting and other events. Duncan began to operate by itself beginning in fall 2010 with a new freshman class, a returning sophomore class, and upperclassmen consisting of students from other colleges who accepted invitations to transfer. The college's first Masters, Marnie Hylton and Luis Duno-Gottberg, have chosen to stay with Duncan for several more years, and the final constitution is going through its last stages before approval. It has also chosen its colors as forest green, white, and gold. It chose government officials, RAs, and a College Coordinator in the spring of 2010, and the crest was revealed during the fall 2010 semester at the dedication ceremony.

Due to the request and contribution of Anne and Charles Duncan, Duncan College is one of the "greenest" buildings on Rice campus, as well as the entire city of Houston. Like nearby McMurtry College, the five-story building was designed by Hopkins Architects of London and offers 324 beds for student housing. The building is the first gold-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) facility at Rice and the first LEED student residential-housing in the United States. The facility is designed to retain water for irrigation purposes and has motion detector lights which will turn on or off according to the flow of people. The building will decrease energy consumption by up to 25% as well as cut back on water usage. Air conditioners power off when windows are opened.

Going into its fourth year of existence, Duncan College has already begun to establish its own culture and traditions. Duncan is well known for its techno dance parties. Often after forum meetings, music will suddenly begin to play and students will spontaneously have a dance party. It also has its own techno theme song, originating from Baker and Duncan's "The Kids Want Techn-O-Week." Duncan College has also established a Monday night tradition, known as "Monday Night Lights." When a few students went down to play ping-pong one night, they noticed that the ping pong table they had played on actually belonged to Baker College, who took its table back. Instead of going to bed, they made a makeshift table in the quad out of extra tables and using toilet paper as the net. People noticed the table and came down to the quad join in, watch and even play acoustic instruments. Monday Night Lights is now a weekly event.

Architecturally, Duncan has the same features as McMurtry with minor differences emphasized in order to establish its uniqueness. For example, Duncan Commons is rectangular in shape, contrasting the round McMurtry Commons. Also, Duncan quad has different features from McMurtry, such as a fountain by the Commons, smaller trees, and walkways that go across the quad. The interior, however, is virtually the same, as both colleges contain mostly doubles in the hallways and single rooms in the corners, with doubles having a pod bathroom inside and singles sharing common bathrooms. Both also have green roofs and fifth floor doubles and suites that open to the outside. The interior hallways of both Duncan and McMurtry were designed as contrasts to the other two most recently built residential colleges, Martel and Wiess, which have exterior hallways.