Despite renovations, there is not enough room for Carleton’s Muslim community to pray, according to Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) members.
The group has a prayer room that can hold 70 people, but students often have to wait in line to use it, said association treasurer Wesam Fageera.
“Many people don’t know how to use the space because it’s crowded, and it used to be smelly,” Fageera said.
The MSA has over 1,200 members and is the biggest club at Carleton, he said.
“The Muslim student population is one of the fastest growing on campus and totals over 5,000 students today,” said Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) president Alexander Golovko.
“However, in the past number of years the prayer space has not reflected this rapid growth.”
CUSA put aside $4,000 in this year’s budget to renovate the prayer room, Golovko said. The newly finished renovations allow an extra 15 to 20 people to pray in the room at a time.
They also put in new carpets and storage facilities, he said.
Renovations are expected to be completed by the end of January or mid-February, Golovko said.
However these renovations are not enough to accommodate the group, MSA director of Islamic programming Washim Ahmed said.
“During evening prayer, at times there are 200 students,” he said.
“Students are waiting outside. People are barely praying and coming out and then another group is coming in. It’s very, very crowded.”
The group wants to build a second floor in the prayer room, Fageera said.
He said university administration turned down their initial proposal because of its costs and potential safety hazards.
Fageera said they have contacted a civil engineer and a contractor to make sure the renovation would be safe, and have even found a donor willing to pay for the $80,000 it would cost to build another floor.
The association sent all their design proposals to university maintenance a month ago, Fageera said.
“The only thing we are waiting for is the approval,” Fageera said.
“There’s no funding issues, there’s no safety hazards, the place is going to improve the capacity and the services that we provide for the Muslim students on campus, so why not?”
Carleton University president Roseann Runte said she listened to that proposal at a meeting in December.
She said the university’s physical planning department is still looking at the proposal to check if it matched fire regulations.
