The Quad is where the U of A community meets online.
As the University of Alberta’s official faculty and staff blog, The Quad is a digital space where the U of A community can meet and both find and contribute to a constellation of community news, information, and opinion.
A note about the title
A “quad” is meeting place commonly found on academic campuses across the world — often located within the campus, a green space enclosed by four “walls” of buildings creating an inner courtyard. The U of A has itself multiple quads on different campuses. Quads are busy places. People sometimes rush, sometimes saunter, on concrete and foot-worn pathways to the other side of campus. Others stop for a while, sit on benches or the lawn, sharing lunch or conversation with friends and colleagues. The quad is an apt metaphor for what we envision with this blog. The Quad is the U of A’s online gathering place where faculty, staff, and students from all five campuses come together as a community on a routine basis. Here on The Quad we can speak to each other across the disciplinary and physical borders that exist between us. Like the quads scattered across our campuses, The Quad is a space that is not just for faculty or staff or students, but for all of us.