Accommodating Muslim (mainly Saudi) students to meet their prayer needs

Recently, I was asked the suggested best practice in accommodate Muslim (mainly Saudi) students to meet their prayer needs. Most of the international students that were under my direction had this need and over the course of time we devised the following:

At the small Midwestern university that I was at, we had designated rooms for students to pray. One was for men, the other was for women. I selected a few members of the student body to ensure that these rooms were acceptable. I chose the members from both genders based off of seniority and who was more vocal. By doing this, the students value your willingness to help them and will help spread the word on the best way to carry out prayers to the rest of the students. The reason you want to get their approval is since the room needs to face a certain direction. If the designated room was not feasible, the students will find a place and make it their own which may not be in the best interest of the others on campus. I had a hall director threaten to take the students prayer rugs and throw them in the trash since they were praying in front of her living quarters, so make sure that you stay ahead of this. I assured the students that these room was theirs to do as they chose between classes any day that classes were in session. Since space comes at a premium, these rooms were classrooms and small offices. Teachers and staff would step out and let students tend to their prayers. The ten minutes between classes was ample enough time to satisfy the student's prayer needs. So, no adjustments to the schedule were needed.

ESL classes on Fridays were done by 12:30 so there was no conflict on visits to the local mosque. Classes in non-ESL programs operate a bit differently so I can't speak from experience on this.

Excused absences are a slippery slope due to SEVIS requirements for F-1 students, therefore, find ways to make prayers work when classes are not in progress. We would only excuse an absense if a doctor's note was in hand and from time to time we were calling the doctor's office to keep everybody honest.

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