La Voz

De Anza College's proposed inter-faith "peace room" is five steps away from becoming a reality. De Anza student Scott McDonough has been one of the most vocal supporters of the possibility of a peace room on campus.

Over the past few months, McDonough and his idea have been announced to the De Anza Associated Student Body Senate and Inter-Club Council meetings. The idea was endorsed last spring by both bodies as a room for contemplation, meditation, and chanting.

However, the Inter-Club Council's endorsement listed "prayer" as one of the uses of the proposed room, but the DASB Senate's version omitted it. The Campus Center Advisory Committee unanimously endorsed the room earlier this month.

They said that the peace room would be given first priority in the first empty room available in the new Campus Center.

McDonough said that he has to go through fi ve steps that he needs to go through in order for the peace room to be approved:

1) Make a sketch of a 20'x20' of the proposed room along with a floor plan, layout, and to list what it should have inside including the rules of operation with the help of different individual students in and out of diverse clubs. Another part of step one would be to research what other rooms similar to this in different colleges around the United States, include such as the University of Michigan's "Refl ection Room which was opened in 2003 due to student requests.

2) Continue attending the Campus Center Advisory Committee meetings on behalf of the peace Room initiative.

3) McDonough will meet with the 15 faculty members who were in favor of the peace room and who also signed the letter La Voz last spring.

4) Go back to the DASB Senate and ICC with a bigger picture of the room with more details and concrete plans and request another endorsement.

McDonough will try to make sure that both of the new endorsements specify that the room would be used for "contemplation, meditation, chanting, and prayer."

5) If McDonough is successful in the first four stages, he will go to the College Council as well as the Foothill De Anza College District Board of Trustee's and ask their approval.

Although McDonough is a proponent of the room, he understands that some would have concerns about having such a room on campus.

He said that if anyone came to him with a convincing reason why the room shouldn't be built, he would stop pursuing the idea. "Fundamentally, the peace room initiative is about whether or not, human beings with different beliefs, can share a room, can share a campus, or can share a planet surface together," McDonough said.

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