La Voz

After over a year of deliberation and discussion with a De Anza College student, the De Anza Associated Student Body Senate endorsed the Peace Room for De Anza during its meeting last Wednesday.

The white board behind the heads of the senate stated, "The DASB generally endorses the creation of a Peace Room when space and resources become available."

The student and main pioneer behind the Peace Room is co-president of the World Peace Buddhists Club, Scott McDonough, who spoke to the senate during his allocated 10 minutes on the floor.

McDonough argued for the peace room in his speech, maintaining that many universities, such as University of California Davis, have similar rooms. He called De Anza "a trailblazer" for other community colleges.

"This is a social experiment, and one of the fundamental questions is: Can different people from different religions pray together?" McDonough said.

"The peace room favors peace, it favors the management of student stress ... All religions would be allowed, but no specific religion would be favored," he said. The senate agreed to approve the rewording of the endorsement to include the word "prayer."

The senate also decided that supervision of the Peace Room would move next school year from the Diversity and Events committee to the Student Rights and Services committee because the latter committee would be more suitable to oversee the development of such a room.

The room is expected to be located where Financial Services is now. McDonough said that although a 25x25 square feet room would be ideal, 20x20 would do, and the room's walls should preferably be painted "earth-tone, something soothing."

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