John Wooden Center introduces Legacy Room for individual religious use
By Cristina Chang
Feb. 10, 2010 9:13 p.m.
As a Muslim on campus, Shahida Bawa found it difficult to find a place of solitude to pray five times a day.
There just wasn’t enough time to go back to her dorm room. And joining her peers behind Kerckhoff Hall for communal prayer would subject her to the mercy of rainy days, cold nights and unpredictable loading vehicles.
As the internal vice president of Undergraduate Students Association, Bawa’s office has worked to create the recently opened Legacy Room, a non-denominational interfaith room located on the second floor of the Wooden Center. The room will allow undergraduate and graduate students a place indoors for prayer, meditation and reflection.
Even before her tenure, Bawa, a fourth-year physiological science and international development studies student, said she’s been hearing students ask for an indoor prayer room.
“Religion is something we don’t talk about as often in a public university, but for some, it’s part of their daily lives,” Bawa said. She added that as a public university, UCLA doesn’t have chapels or churches on campus.
Last quarter, the Wooden Center agreed to have the interfaith room placed there and opened the room Feb. 5.
The space was converted to be more multi-use and better serve the individual student’s needs, said Mick Deluca, director of UCLA Recreation. A former office on the second floor was renovated and the space was called the Legacy Room, to borrow from Coach Wooden vernacular, he added.
He said the room was created to meet the needs of all students and that it was a multi-use room, supported by student groups ranging from the Muslim Student Assocation to martial arts and yoga clubs.
Bawa emphasized that the space is for students of all faiths and wouldn’t be used to ostracize any student from using it. The Legacy Room was renovated with plain carpeting and paint and has shelves to store backpacks and shoes. The room is plain, with no art and symbols from different religions. Bawa said she hopes students who utilize the space will be courteous and respectful.
The idea for a prayer room had been discussed for years, said Amira Elmallah, a fourth-year international development studies student and external vice president of the Muslim Student Association. Without a prayer room, members of her group have prayed in places like their office at Kerckhoff, on the grass by Janss Steps, and at Bruin Plaza.
“Everyone wanted a room in a place like Ackerman or Kerckhoff because of its central location,” said Abdallah Jadallah, a fourth-year civil engineering student and former president of MSA. “But obviously ASUCLA couldn’t accommodate that.”
The Legacy Room was also supported by students from yoga, martial arts and cultural clubs as well, Deluca said,
Aleksandra Van Loggerenberg, a member of Muay Thai, a Thai kickboxing student group, said the Legacy Room would provide a space conducive for out-of-class, one-on-one training for her members. She added that the room would help her members work on fitness, conditioning and cultural dance in a more private setting.
The space is geared more towards the individual student, she said, while students who want communal prayer or to give a sermon can still reserve rooms in places like Ackerman Union or in a lecture hall.
