On April 29, students of the Jain, Sikh, Hindu and Buddhist faith communities began moving supplies into the Shapiro Campus Center art gallery in the first steps to creating a temporary Dharmic prayer center on campus. 

The prayer space will officially open at a ceremony in “the first month of the college opening,” according to Hindu Chaplain Vaishali Gupta. The space will only serve as a prayer space “for the time being,” according to a March 26 email from Director of Student Activities Stephanie Grimes. In an email to the Justice, Dean of Students Jamele Adams clarified that the current art gallery will be identified as the Dharmic prayer space, “but with the understanding that there may be a different space located as an assessment of space on campus takes place in the future.” Gupta stated in an interview with the Justice that there are currently no plans for pursuing a different, permanent space. 

Each of the four corners of the prayer space will be designated for each of the four communities—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Gupta said that she “[doesn’t] see any issues” arising from the shared space, due to the similar underlying philosophies of all the faiths. Erik Howden ’16—the co-president of Sangha, the non-denominational Buddhist-oriented club—agreed, noting that he “wasn’t expecting it to be as easy” as it was to coordinate with the other groups. Namaskar, the association for Hindus, Jains and Sikhs, will share the space with Sangha and other students. Gupta said that the space will also be used for events focused on cross-cultural dialogue and that students who are not of Dharmic faiths are welcome to enter the center and join meditations.

The Dharmic faith students have agreed to honor reservations for the art gallery from before the room was designated the Dharmic prayer center, meaning the group had to move their supplies out of the gallery on May 15 to honor a prior reservation, then move the supplies back. 

In September 2014, students petitioned the University to create a permanent Dharmic prayer space. Gupta and eight to ten of these students met with Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel shortly thereafter, and he suggested that the students consider the room currently occupied by the WRC. According to Gupta and Howden, the students were told that the WRC was “being moved to another place either way” to become part of the office currently used by Student Sexuality Information Services, and neither Gupta, Howden nor any of the other students were consulted about whether the move should occur or not. 

In March, the space move faced vocal student outcry, as the WRC is the meeting place for the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, a political advocacy group. Students objected to the FMLA sharing a space with the non-political SSIS. According to a March 24 Justice article, FMLA Vice President Cecile Afable ’16 was only informed of the space move after a March 13 email, one week before they were instructed to vacate the space. 

According to Gupta, “when we realized that they didn’t want to move, then we didn’t want that space, because we didn’t want to displace anybody and get a space.” Howden said that FMLA members quickly reached out to him and “from the very beginning, they were like, ‘we [FMLA members] want you guys to get a space, we support that space.’” FMLA members continued to check in on the students’ progress in finding a prayer space in the subsequent weeks, according to Howden. After the space move was cancelled, the Dharmic students began regularly meeting with Dean of Students Jamele Adams to locate a suitable space. 

Howden added, “frankly, I’m quite happy with our movement of space” to the former SCC art gallery, as it was a location “we had thought about in our first round of getting a space in general.” 

Gupta stated that she is eager to move into the space and begin working on new projects. “It’s much better than the space we were thinking of initially; it’s got a lot of light,” she said. “It feels really very beautiful to be able to go there and pray there. The students are happy.”