Terrance Pendleton, the associate provost of campus equity and inclusion, announced the opening of a spiritual wellness room in Collier-Scripps room 133 on Feb. 3.
“I would like to thank the Muslim Faculty/Staff Affinity group for spearheading this initiative,” Pendleton said in the announcement. “I also appreciate Dr. Ryan Wise, Dean of the School of Education, and the School of Education’s Diversity Committee for their support in these efforts.”
Pendleton said the spiritual wellness room offers a space for prayer, meditation, gentle rest and nursing. The room’s creation was led by Bengu Erguner-Tekinalp, a professor of counseling education, and Dian Nostikasari, the chair of the faculty Muslim affinity group.
Some Muslim students reached out to Dian Nostikasari and asked about creating a dedicated prayer space. Since Islamic prayers are based on the location of the sun, Erguner-Tekinalp noticed a greater need for a prayer room in the winter.
“It becomes a larger need for students to just find a space for five to 10 minutes, just to either complete their prayers or even just to settle in between classes,” Erguner-Tekinalp said.
Erguner-Tekinalp and Nostikasari wanted the room to be designed for everyone.
“[Nostikasari] and I wanted to make sure that it’s not [just] a Muslim space, but it’s more meeting the need of all students and staff and faculty to find a space to rest and to reset,” Erguner-Tekinalp said. “It’s almost like a reset room.”
The spiritual wellness room has a chair, prayer rugs, shawls, yoga mats and a meditation bowl to support student wellness.
“What I noticed is that when you want to create a wellness culture at Drake, we always put it at the responsibility of the individual,” Erguner-Tekinalp said. “But then if you don’t have spaces or a community that supports it, it becomes another to-do list. It becomes another thing that we fail at, right, which is the opposite of wellness.”
