From Chapel to Meditation Room: A Case Study of Religion and Spirituality on Campus

Abstract

Built in 1957, The Helen Mauck Galbreath Memorial Chapel opened on the campus of Ohio University. The charter of Galbreath Chapel states that people of all faiths are welcome and that “no permanent furnishings would be identifiable to a specific religion or denomination”. Sixty years later, The United Meditation Room opened in the University's Vernon R. Alden Library with a similar welcome but a very different interior design strategy, one that reflects the gradual shift from religious identities to notions of spirituality. This case study explored the role of interiors and architecture in defining spirituality and supporting campus desires for religious diversity and inclusion. Informed by an understanding of environmental symbology, the following two questions shaped the investigation: (1) How do architectural vocabulary and interior treatments of the 1957 design now carry meaning which has rendered the previously faith-neutral Galbreath Chapel Western in ideology and religiosity? and (2) How does the interior of The United Meditation Room represent a new model for spirituality, religious diversity, and inclusion? This study found that artifacts of the interior defined each space as inclusive and welcoming in their own time yet identified The United Meditation Room as uniquely situated to represent a contemporary model of spirituality on campus.