New meditation and prayer room to open in RMC

By Anita Alem     1/19/16 1:38am

The Student Association and Graduate Student Association have moved out of their office space in the Rice Memorial Center cloisters and designated the space as a meditation and prayer room, according to SA President Jazz Silva. Although intended to be religious or non-religious interfaith, the space is being allocated partly due to efforts on behalf of the Muslim Student Association, as well as the Boniuk Council, Student Activities, GSA and the SA.

“I would be dishonest to say that this advocacy wasn't largely sparked to address the needs of our Muslim students on campus,” Silva said. “After looking at the needs of the MSA, we discovered that the space most suitable was our own office.”

The MSA currently utilizes the groom’s college next to the RMC chapel for prayer space. Muslims have five obligatory prayers every day that must each be completed within a certain time span. As three of these are during the school day, the times conflict with typical coursework and extracurriculars, so the prayers must be completed on campus.

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Former MSA President and Boniuk Council member Zaid Bilgrami (Baker ’15), conducted several surveys within the MSA to determine how best to meet the students’ needs.

“We found that the prayer room was visited at least 137 times in a week,” Bilgrami said. “I would say this is around average.”

Students raised several concerns, including size, noise, access and lack of an ablution space. Since the groom’s closet is attached to the chapel, sounds from the chapel are easily heard and the room was occasionally locked and used for weddings.

“On occasion, [weddings] also resulted in trash and sometimes alcohol being left in the space, rendering the space unclean and unfit for worship,” Bilgrami said. “Respondents also indicated that while the old space was central and convenient, it was not close enough to a bathroom or ablution station.”

According to Bilgrami, the MSA had been pushing for a new prayer space as early as 2012, although requests to Facilities Engineering and Planning ended unsuccessfully. In 2015, Bilgrami met with Student Center Director Kate Abad as well as other administrators and received support to create a new meditation space on campus.

Bilgrami said in a later meeting with Boniuk Council President Dan McNamara, GSA President Lynn Fahey, Silva and Associate Director of Student Activites Olivia Barker, the group decided to designate the SA and GSA office as a meditation room. Silva said that the SA and GSA space is suited to needs of the MSA as it is beautiful, spacious, soundproof and centrally located. They also considered the possibility of retrofitting the chapel to make it more accessible and create a reservation system for students.

“I'm pleased that the SA, GSA and administration [have] been receptive to the needs of minority students on campus,” Bilgrami said. “It's important to understand, though, that the conversation doesn't end here. We need to figure out which needs of other minority religious and non-religious groups aren't currently being met and take steps to accommodate those groups.”

McNamara said he was appreciative of all of the groups that came together to make this change happen.

“This move marks a dramatic improvement in the state of affairs for Muslim students on campus and underscores this university's long legacy of a commitment to the value of diversity,” McNamara said.

Fahey said the SA and GSA had moved out of their office within a week of making their decision.

“The GSA feels strongly that all students should have space on campus that meets their needs and makes them feel safe and welcome in our community,” Fahey said. “We are happy that we could provide a solution that seems so workable.”

The SA office will move to the Blair Conference Room in the basement of the RMC.

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