The addition of a meditation room as part of the Butterfield Hall renovation project was announced at the Residence Halls Association, or RHA, media general assembly meeting last Wednesday.
Residence Education and Housing Services Assistant Director of Communications Ashley Chaney displayed a board with the plan and images of the meditation room at last week’s meeting. The room is set to open in August of 2014.
“The meditation room is simply going to be a quite place to go and reflect,” Chaney said.
The room will feature some of Michigan’s natural aspects with the walls displaying water and wood themes. The room also will include a floor sink students can use while in the room.
Armstrong and Bryan halls will have meditation rooms but won’t include floor sinks, which could be used for people to wash their feet or face, Interim Assistant Director of Construction Management Bill Whitbeck said.
“Design-wise, it is going to have a wall finish that will represent water and a wall finish that represents wood, (with) two glass walls that look like windows,” he said. “It’ll be very calming.”
Butterfield will be shut down next year while renovations are made to the whole building.
The meditation room officially will be open when the building is reopened at the start of the fall semester 2014. Since the project is part of the previously planned renovations, there will be no additional costs to build the room.
Meditation rooms could appear more on campus as the school continues to renovate dorms, Whitbeck said.
Chaney said she is unsure if students living off campus will have access to the meditation rooms because there are certain times when the halls are locked for security purposes.
The meditation room will be added because of student requests, Whitbeck said.
“When we do a project, we talk to a wide variety of people — students, staff and faculty — and the feedback showed students asked for it,” Whitbeck said.
RHA is on board with adding a relaxation room and supports the project.
“It is a beautiful and relaxing area for students to enjoy,” RHA Director of Public Relations Abigail Bhattacharyya said. “Its addition is one more way MSU provides students with an amazing on-campus experience that promotes security and inclusion for all student residents.”
Kinesiology sophomore Lindsay Kander, who occasionally meditates in her free time, believes the addition of the meditation room will help some students.
“I think it’ll be beneficial just as a quiet space to just get away from all the craziness of school, and it might be good for students to be on their own and think about their life and stuff,” Kander said.
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