on the Quad

Many universities in England, the United States and Canada had their buildings originally built around a "square" (which may or may not have actually been square--many were rectangular). These are often referred to as "the quadrangle" (any figure having four corners), and by abbreviation, a "quad." I worked at the University of Illinois for years, in the Foreign Language Building, which is on the southeast corner of the "Quad."



This is an image of the Quad at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois, in springtime, and you are looking south. The building in the upper center is the graduate library. On the upper left-hand side, you can just see a brick building--that's the Foreign Language Building.

Yes, in this instance quad is the abbreviation for

quad·ran·gle (kwdrnggl)
n.

a. A rectangular area surrounded on all four sides by buildings.
b. The buildings bordering this area.


Often universities have a large grassy area that would have buildings surrounding it.

Thank you both.

quad erat demonstrandum

Yeah, that does kinda demonstrandum it all, don't it?

Funnily enough, my abiding mental image of a quad is of a smaller, paved area, and not a larger, green area.
However I suppose many Oxbridge quads have both. I may have to revise this.

What you see there is pretty typical of "quads" at American universities. One of the universities i attended was the Illinois State University. Here is an image of the "quad" at ISU: