A Room With a View: Accommodating Hindu Religious Practice on a College Campus

Abstract

This article examines the question of how to best accommodate Hindu practice on college campuses by contrasting the dedication of a prayer room with the hiring of a Hindu chaplain. The author suggests that this dichotomy-of an impersonal physical space (“a room”) on the one hand, and a chaplain empowered to lead a community (“a view”) on the other-is a useful way of exploring a shift in accommodating Hindu students’ religious practice. The author first presents a gloss of religious practice in contemporary Hinduism. Next, he identifies the two broad approaches to accommodating Hindu practice on college campuses and discusses three important shifts that accompany moving from one approach to the other. In closing, he proposes that meaningful engagement and communication with a chaplain makes reconciliation between the two approaches possible.