A student organization at the University of Kentucky is working to establish a campus 'personal reflection' room. A new student center, yet to be built, appears to be the most likely location for such a space.
Members of UK's Muslim Student Association are leading the effort to designate a non-denominational prayer-reflection room. Representatives of the MSA have been working on the project for more than a year. MSA President Emaan Qureshi says Muslims pray five times during the day. Qureshi says finding a quiet spot in a public setting is not easy. "And it gets kind of difficult when we have to pray in between book shelves or under stairs. You always get those kind of odd comments like, 'Oh, what is she doing over there? Why is she on the ground?’ So, it gets kind of uncomfortable for some students," said Qureshi.
Qureshi recently met with J.J. Jackson, UK’s Vice President for Institutional Diversity. Jackson believes the request shows students are thoughtful and reflective. As UK moves forward with its new student center, she says the idea is to work with builders to add a student reflection space into the design. "The plan right now is to have the architects look into having such a dedicated room in the new student center so that when it opens there's the strong likelihood that the students will have a non-denominational reflection room built into the plans," said Jackson.
Jackson says it will be at least a year before a reflection room could be added in the new student center. Jackson believes it's wonderful students are seeking a reflection room, adding "I think that's a good thing."
Qureshi doesn't see any problems if students of different faiths wanted to use a space at the same time. "I know that I don't really need that much room to pray and I don't think anyone would need too much, so we could all stay in one room. There wouldn't be any conflict or anything so, hopefully, we could all just pray together just in our own spaces," explained Qureshi.
The center has yet to be built, so Qureshi hopes a temporary space can be designated in the meantime.
She believes the addition of a prayer room to UK's campus can help foster understanding about her religion and others.
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