Last spring on May 4, the Middlebury Muslim Student Association (MSA) board received an email from college administration stating that the Crest room would transition from a religious space to an all-use one. In addition to MSA, other religious organizations like the Middlebury InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), the Newman Catholic Student Organization and the Hindu Student Association (HSA) lost priority access to the space.
The MSA had used the Crest room — a spacious and sunlit pocket of the McCullough Student Center — for several years to host Jummah prayer on Friday afternoons. With the nearest mosque to Middlebury nearly an hour away in Burlington, Muslim students used the room to store their prayer mats and hold the weekly service.
“At the conclusion of the spring semester, the Crest room will no longer be a dedicated space for the Scott Center or religious organizations,” the May email reads.
Previous users of the room were required to remove their shoes, and food allowed in the space was restricted to vegetarian-only. As of the coming semester, the email stated, shoes would be not only allowed but required, there would be no food restrictions, prayer mats and other items could no longer be stored and furniture would be moved in. The Crest room was to transition as soon as the Scott Center for Religious and Spiritual Life moved closer to campus and its recently finalized location at 135 South Main Street.
“We no longer have the supplies and equipment we had [in the Crest room] previously (tea service, microwave, study tables on the balcony, etc); the space is now set up in a generic way that would allow any group to use it,” Ellen Jewett, administrative program coordinator for the Scott Center, wrote in an email to The Campus.
As of this year, religious organizations still have access to the room, but their reservations no longer have priority. Because the shoe and food restrictions were lifted, the space is no longer appropriate for Jummah prayers. Other religious organizations, like IVCF, which used the Crest room for weekly discussions on Friday evenings, also encountered difficulty reserving the space this fall.
“It was so last-minute. I feel like there could have been better communication between the school and all the orgs that lost access to that place as their primary place,” Rayhan Mahamed ’29, co-president of MSA, said. “That meant we had to organize super quickly and we had to set up a meeting with each other to figure out how we were going to tackle this issue.”
Administration initially gave the MSA the option to switch their reservation to the Islamic Center, a dedicated space in the Forest basement.
“It was a pretty dingy room that we had, it was a basement room and it was super small,” Mahamed said. “The issue with that room was that we just couldn’t fit everyone. That’s why we used the Crest room in the first place. And we had one window in [the Islamic Center].”
As the semester wound to a close, the incoming MSA board wrote a petition to regain priority access over the room, which gained 99 signatures across various religious organizations, including the Jewish Association at Middlebury, IVCF, the HSA and MSA itself. Vice President of Student Affairs, Smita Ruzicka, informed MSA that the decision to open the Crest room to non-religious reservations was final.
MSA then sent a letter to the administration outlining the importance of the Crest room to its programming, and requesting that the previous guidelines be reinstated.
“This context matters: there is no local Islamic center within 40 minutes of campus by car. In conversations with Jewish and Christian students, we learned that both communities have dedicated centers right here in the town of Middlebury,” the letter reads.
The letter also emphasized the immense growth of the Middlebury MSA, explaining that weekly prayers needed a large space like the Crest Room. Mahamed also noted that a large portion of MSA members are international students and do not have cars, making it difficult for them to make the trek to Burlington, especially if they have Friday classes.
“As an international student, MSA means home, a place that I feel like myself and I don’t have to be another person to the people in MSA, they accept me the way that I am,” Rashida Marjan Aziz ’29, event coordinator for MSA and international student from Afghanistan said.
The room in Forest Hall basement, which was previously used only for storage spaces, lacked proximity to a bathroom for ablution before prayer, enough space and light to accommodate students and did not have adequate storage space. Both storage rooms in the Islamic Center were either closed due to leaks or inaccessible due to a broken door handle, according to the letter.
The letter listed several potential substitutes for the Crest room, including a lounge in Forest Hall. Through collaboration with Ruzicka and Associate Vice President and Dean of Students Joe Russell, this space was secured for the MSA for the fall semester.
“It’s perfect, where we can transfer stuff that we have in the basement as well. It’s been great. We’ve been able to furnish it and it’s a bigger space so we can fit everyone,” Mahamed said.
Marjan Aziz echoed Mahamed’s sentiment.
“That room [in the Forest Hall basement] was small and dark and it wasn’t really nice, but this room is much bigger and it feels like it belongs to us,” she said.
As for other religious organizations that had previously used the Crest room for events, reservations have been trickier this year.
“We haven’t been able to reserve [the Crest room]. We used to have priority over it, and now there’s been a couple of times where I’ve heard that for various other reasons, maybe an orientation event, they’ll just say, ‘hey, we already have a reservation,’” Jonathan Bucholz ’27, former president of IVCF, said.
For now, IVCF has been able to find a replacement in the Mitchell Green room, also located in the McCullough Student Center, but no longer has a dedicated space on campus. According to Jewett, other religious organizations like the Newman Catholic Student Organization and the HSA also lack dedicated spaces on campus for their religious observances.
“I feel like we’re a big organization, and it’d be really nice to have our own space,” Bucholz said. “Whether it’s a 24/7 prayer room, or having a place for us to host and kind of be home, I think would make us feel that we’re valued.”
The Crest room will remain open for all student organizations or administrative needs this school year. Although it no longer gives religious organizations priority, the Scott Center for Religious and Spiritual Life is working closely with students to ensure that their needs are met.
Kai Arrowood '29 (he/him) is the Senior News Editor.
Kai is majoring in Comparative Literature with minors in Spanish and Political Science. He previously served as a staff writer and news editor. Aside from The Campus, he is a copy editor for Middlebury Geographic and a correspondent for Planet Forward. When he's not writing, you can find him DJing his techno radio show and going for long runs.
