Life Through the Years
Muslim student life at Tandon has taken various forms over the course of time. One of the earliest pieces of evidence I found pertaining to organized Muslim student life is an image I found of the Arabic Student Association in the 1988 - 1989 Polywog (Polytechnic University’s Yearbook). I believe that this is the precursor to what became known as the Muslim Student Association. A possible reason why they did not call themselves the Muslim Student Association at that point in time is because of the fact that all of the other identity-based student organizations on campus went by ethnicity instead of being based on religion. The transition from the ASA to the MSA is one that is murky and it is an archival gap. I was unable to determine if the ASA turned into the MSA or not with the information found within the Poly Archives.
Eventually, the Muslim Student Association (MSA) became the center of Muslim student life at Polytechnic University. The MSA started to also advertise their activities in the university newspaper, the PolyWog. Additionally, it was at this point that we can see a prayer space was established for the Muslim students and it seemed to be that student life revolved around that room much like it does today. It is interesting to see that the Muslim Student Association was given equal representation in the Polywog as one of the presumptions I had was that Muslim student life would be more under the radar post 9/11 due to the increase in discrimination. Not seeing this trend was very reassuring to me in that the Poly community did not engage in such discrimination.
After the merger with NYU was finalized in 2015, the Polytechnic University Muslim Student Association was renamed to be called the NYU Tandon MSA. It also began its affiliation with the Islamic Center at NYU which is one of the most prominent Islamic centers in the United States. Additionally, there has started to be cross-school programming within the MSA as the resident scholars from the Islamic Center at NYU come to the Tandon campus and hold different types of events. The MSA of present-day is much different than the MSA prior to the merger. The MSA is highly integrated into the NYU ecosystem and is pretty much synonymous with ICNYU and the main campus MSA (NYUMSA).
The MSA also performs a high volume of community service and does sizeable amounts of good not only for the Muslim students on campus but for everyone. I often see many non-Muslims at MSA events who seem to enjoy the programming. One of the most important things that the MSA does every year is to compete in charity week which is an initiative of Islamic Relief USA. We compete with MSAs from other universities to see who can raise the most money for charity. This past year, we raised over $90,000 for Orphans and Children in Need. NYU collectively raised more than all of the other competing schools.
Another aspect of the MSA that was extremely fascinating to me was the difference in the amounts of funds allocated for student activity. According to the graph shown in the Polytechnic Reporter, the total amount requested by the MSA in 2002 was about $2000 of which they were approved for $1000. That amount seems minuscule compared to the amount of money that is spent on Muslim student activity nowadays. In the month of Ramadan alone, the ICNYU in collaboration with the Tandon MSA hosted nightly iftar dinners for which they spent approximately $7,400 every night. The MSA and Muslim student life on campus has evolved a great deal over the decades and it has mostly improved for the better.