Drummond Chapel, a non-denominational meeting space on the third floor of the Memorial Union, was reconfigured this summer to include needed office space for the Bodwell Center for Service and Volunteerism. A wall was built in the chapel, reducing its size by one-third, to 250 square feet.
Many individuals, small prayer groups and other spiritual groups use the chapel. However, the largest group, a weekly meditation gathering, has found it challenging to adapt to the smaller space, which no longer accommodates their needs to the same extent.
“You’d think if you’re going to take a space that’s used for a traditional purpose and begin using it for another purpose, you’d at least [reach] out [to] the people who are using it,” said Hugh Curran, professor in the Peace Studies program at UMaine and leader of the group meditation.
Administration sees the construction as a positive compromise, balancing a need for office space. Assistant Vice President and Senior Associate Dean of Students Kenda Scheele said she would have contacted more people if she had removed the chapel entirely.
“It was meant for students,” Scheele said. “We felt that since the Bodwell Center was a student service, it was at least [in] keeping with the general area. It’s at least a service-to-the-community kind of thing.”
The meditation group worked with Scheele and decided the best alternative was to meet in the Memorial Room located on the central floor of the Union.
“Pretty much every other space is not conducive to meditation,” she said. “The Memorial Room was the best choice of all the spaces we still have.”
Curran finds the Memorial Room adequate, “but it is not a chapel, so I see it as necessary only because the Chapel is no longer of adequate size,” he said.
Members of the meditation group as well as some students not involved in the group are focused on the need for a more appropriate spiritual space for students to go. Marie Hayes, a member of the meditation group and a professor in the psychology department, feels it’s typical for universities to set aside a space for non-denominational spiritual use.
“Realizing students have spiritual needs and they have limited access to quiet spaces, universities and campuses can be very significant in personal transformations,” Hayes said.
Shane Dorval, a third-year student who uses the Drummond Chapel for meditation, agrees.
“It’s absolutely necessary for non-denominational space to be available on campus,” he said. “The university should be sponsoring more spirituality because it is a big stress reliever and [source of] support for students.”
Hayes thinks that it’s up to the Student Government to decide how important a space such as Drummond Chapel is to them.
“It’s worth having a campus community discussion about,” she said.
Despite the disturbance construction caused for the meditation group, Dave Roderick, of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a group who consistently uses the room for prayer discussions, has been able to adjust.
“It just makes us closer together,” he said.
“There are students who use it for prayer or bible study or other types of religious study. I do think it’s adequate, I really do. The Drummond family would be fine with what we’ve done,” Scheele said.
According to Scheele, the idea of making the chapel space into a graphic arts studio in the early 1970s was considered, but that proposition was shot down because the donors didn’t support it. The donors did, however, later agree that the Memorial Union Board, which makes decisions about the building and its operations, could decide how the room was to be used.
Scheele said that the chapel doesn’t need to be able to support larger services that traditional university chapels tend to support.
“It’s a chapel by virtue of its name. Services can be held any number of places. In the letters [describing the original intent for the space], it’s always described as a small chapel,” Scheele said.
According to fourth-year student Emily Puleio, the necessity of the chapel still remains.
“I think it’s necessary and if cutting off the space is cutting off someone’s spiritual education, then I don’t agree with that at all,” Puleio said.
“I would have certainly reached out to the campus community had we decided to eliminate the chapel,” Scheele said. “I myself go there, just to have a quiet space. There’s no phone in there. You can just sort of sit there and take a breath, you know? We all need a space to feel safe to do that.”
The newly renovated chapel still needs some sprucing up; according to Scheele, “it looks kind of stark right now, but we intend — as we have for other spaces in the building — to contact the University of Maine Museum of Art and they will put art on the walls from their collection.”