Give religion a home at NYU

The creation of the Kimmel Center might have been a big step forward for the university, but it was the first step in leaving Muslim students homeless.

Now, after having been moved to the Thompson Center for several years, members of the Islamic Center at NYU are fund raising in attempts to raise $10 million to secure a permanent home for Muslim students to pray and engage in other religious activities. Because the lease on the Thompson Center will be expiring in mid-May, these students have taken on the bold challenge to keep Islamic faith alive on campus by looking for an alternative center.

The students, who were told that their lease will officially be up in May, have been dedicated toward fund raising and creating a new center for a few years now. Under Khalid Lati, last year's president, the students were able to meet with numerous university officials to discuss the most practical ways to establish a new home.
While the university has been very helpful, the process of raising money, looking for temporary spaces to lease and eventually finding a permanent building has been long and tiring.

"We actually started meeting with NYU in 2003 about finding a new building that would be big enough to accommodate all the Muslim students," said Lati, who graduated from CAS last year.

According to Lati, Muslim students were given a small room at the top of the Thompson Center. However, with the growing number of Muslim participants, the center went from accommodating about 20 students to more than 250, and more during Ramadan and special events. The university agreed to renew their lease twice after meeting with representatives who spoke of an interest to find a new permanent building.

But now, the students estimate that they will need about $8 million to create a permanent center and about $45,000 every year in the interim to lease space, Latif said. When a permanent space is established, the students want to not only use it for prayer, but make it educationally conducive, with a library, resource center and classrooms.

While the students' dedication to establishing a center should be applauded and the university's involvement in the student group's mission is commendable, it should not be the responsibility of college students to raise millions of dollars in order to pray. With the closest Islamic prayer center at least a 20 minute walk from campus, Muslim students - who pray five times a day - need to have a space on campus and shouldn't be burdened with finding the money to establish that space.

Rather, university initiatives to create one large spiritual building should be passed, thereby accounting for the needs of all 28 religious groups on campus. WSN reported that Senior Vice President of Alumni Affairs Debra LaMorte expressed the university's interest in building a center for students of all faiths, but according to Latif, these plans have been discussed for a long time and no action has been taken.

"Having a spiritual center would be an ideal situation," Latif said. "There are a lot of groups that want spaces and will have to follow a similar process that we have."

Instead of leaving religious groups with no option but to fund raise for themselves and buy a building, the university should lighten everyone's load by allocating enough university money to establish one big center for all faiths.

A multireligious center would also help to foster closer relations among different religious groups on campus and would not leave some religious organizations cramped in tiny rooms while others have entire buildings.

"To have a spiritual center ... would allow for a lot more dialogue and interfaith talks between [religious] groups and allow for more cooperative efforts like community service or educational initiatives," Lati said.

The university needs to continue working to make this plan a reality and other religious groups must take the same initiative taken by the Islamic Center, by meeting with university officials and expressing an interest in the development of such a building. Only with the university's help and the permanent establishment of a multi-faith center will the prayers of all religious groups come true. €¢