Wayne State’s new Reflection Room, located on the third floor of the Student Center, was built to give students a quiet place to pray, meditate, or just reflect spiritually.
There are prayer rugs rolled and propped in corners and religious texts aligned in a small bookshelf. Times are posted on the door breaking down the daily prayers for Muslims, as well as a note asking users to take off their shoes.
Dean of Students David J. Strauss explained the inception and creation of the Reflection Room.
“The students have expressed an interest in having a reflection room for quite some time,” he said, “but it was really [former student council President Jake Kinde’s] leadership to get it on the radar to make it happen.
“Jake brought it up to the Board of Governors in mid-winter semester last year, like February, and we got it opened about two weeks ago in late October.”
When Kinde left the position as Student Council president, current President James Gale took over the final stages of the project. Gale was excited about the room’s completion and talked about plans to improve it.
“The Reflection Room is a quiet place for students to gather. If they want to pray, they can go there to pray,” Gale said. “It’s also going to be a meeting room for student organizations. We’re planning on getting some furniture in there. It’s actually a really nice room.”
According to Strauss, it cost roughly $39,000 to convert the room from an essentially unused storage space. The actual reflection room itself sits in the southeast corner within a larger room, all of which was redone with the money used.
The project was a collaborative effort among Strauss, Kinde, Gale and Student Center Director Michael Bowen using money that had accumulated in a “carry forward” fund. It consisted of money not used by the Student Council, the Student Planning Committee or the Student Budget Committee. The money was set aside in the fund until it was used for special projects like the Reflection Room.
Talking about the plans for the Reflection Room, Strauss explained that “the room itself is not just reflection — you’ve got the reflection room, then you’ve got the area where we’re going to be installing lockers.” The space will also be a room used explicitly for unplanned meetings for student organizations.
“The front part of the room, which we’re calling the Summit Room, is going to have tables, chairs and easels on wheels,” Strauss said. “We want it as a space where student organizations can have impromptu meetings.”
The Reflection Room is just the beginning for plans to improve the Student Center, one that has been in the hands of Strauss and Bowen for some time but has taken a shift from relocation to restoration.
“We were looking to get a new facility,” Bowen said. “But when that fell through, David and I got more aggressive about transforming some of the spaces.”
It’s a renewal that has been boosted with the Reflection Room but will continue with other projects.
“This building could transform itself just with carpet and paint,” Strauss said.
But they have their work cut out for them. The Student Center is not a very spacious building. Sporting narrow halls, small rooms and a vertical construction, the Student Center looks more like an office building than a center of interaction.
“It’s very hard,” Bowen said, “there are no grand, open spaces.”
On top of the constricting layout, the Student Center shares its space with a number of other departments, further cutting down on the areas available for students.
According to Strauss, only he and Bowen really need actual office space.
“If you get down to the brass tacks of it, there’s only two offices that need to be tenants: [Bowen’s] office and mine; the Student Center and the Dean of Students Office,” he said.
Strauss also said he believed in a reorganizing of the other offices to other buildings, leaving the Student Center more open for students.
For now, Bowen, Strauss and Gale will have to work with what they have got. The Student Center remains cramped, but students still gather for food, play and study.
The feedback from the Reflection Room has been all positive, according to Gale, and the Summit Room promises to offer another positive use for the limited space.
But the idea for a new Student Center is not dead — completely. After speaking about many other plans he had for improving the Student Center, Bowen paused to reflect.
“I’ve got a feeling, though, that maybe by the time I retire that we will revisit the idea of replacing this building,” he said.
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