Muslim students at the University of Colorado are calling on school leaders to create a room inside the Engineering Center that they can use for their obligatory, five-times daily prayers while they’re on campus.
Currently, Muslim students say they pray under a set of stairs that lead up to the engineering school’s administrative offices and main lobby.
But, they argue, praying in that very public — and often loud — space is not ideal for connecting with God.
“It is a little bit uncomfortable,” said Nur Umar, a sophomore from Malaysia studying electrical engineering. “A lot of students are using those stairs to go up and down, so there are people walking by all the time. I’m getting used to noises when I pray, but I feel kind of uncomfortable with people seeing me pray.”
Umar said she worries about making other students uncomfortable, too.
Though it’s hard to say exactly how many Muslim students are enrolled in the College of Engineering and Applied Science, some 400 students signed a petition seeking a prayer room that they recently delivered to campus leaders.
According to the results of a 2014 climate survey conducted at the request of the CU Board of Regents, roughly 1.7 percent of students and 0.6 percent of faculty surveyed on the Boulder campus identified as Muslim.
Across the CU system, 2.1 percent of students and 0.5 percent of faculty surveyed identified as Muslim, with the highest number of Muslim students, 4.4 percent, attending CU Denver and the highest number of Muslim faculty members, 1.4 percent, working on the Colorado Springs campus.
The creation of a prayer room could help attract and keep religious students on campus by making them feel more comfortable and welcome, said Binet Alagic, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student.
“There is a lot of diversity on campus, but if they wish to keep it like that, then it’s necessary to respect and fulfill the needs of the students,” Alagic said.
Few options
Prayer is one of the core tenets of Islam, which requires most adult Muslims to pray five times a day: before sunrise, midday, before sunset, after sunset and at night.
Many engineering students spend the majority of their day at the Engineering Center, the hulking gray maze of classrooms, study spaces and offices near the corner of Colorado Avenue and Regent Drive.
But for Muslim students, balancing schoolwork with the obligations of their faith can prove challenging. Depending on their courseload and other commitments, students can end up praying two to four times a day in the Engineering Center stairwell.
Though some students pray at the Islamic Center of Boulder at 5495 Baseline Road, without a car, it’s a 20- to 30-minute bus ride each way, said Usama Anwar, who’s working toward a doctorate in electrical engineering.
“It’s not feasible, if you’re taking classes, to go over there three times a day,” said Anwar, who came to CU from Pakistan. “I maybe get over there once a week.”
Other students pray in the Muslim Student Association office inside the University Memorial Center, but if students are rushing between classes or work, that’s not ideal, either.
Anwar pointed out that during the winter months, the area under the stairs in the Engineering Center gets a cold rush of air each time students or faculty members open the double doors leading into the building.
He said he wants the prayer room to be open to everyone.
“We’re open to having a prayer room for Christians, Jews, anyone who wants to pray,” Anwar said.
Room for quiet activity
Campus officials say that if a room is eventually designated in the Engineering Center, it couldn’t be a “prayer room,” per se, but rather, a room for quiet activities and reflection.
“What’s being looked at now is what can we do that’s within the law,” said Bronson Hilliard, a campus spokesman. “What we have to balance is the legal requirement of religious accommodation with the establishment clause of the First Amendment. All universities are in the same place, basically, that you can’t restrict people’s practice of their religion. But you also can’t go too far in using public facilities to accommodate it.”
Hilliard said officials in the engineering college and the student affairs division are looking for a room that could be suitable for “any kind of quiet, reflective activity,” including prayer.
He said the room can’t be labeled a prayer room or have any permanent faith symbol affixed to it.
Hilliard said he didn’t know whether there were other, similar rooms in existence elsewhere on campus already. Though planners had designed a meditation room for the Center for Community, it never actually was used that way once crews completed work on the building, Hilliard said.