On Catholic college campuses across the country, it is not uncommon to find Muslim students praying in a makeshift prayer room or campus mosque five times a day.

At Georgetown University in Washington, Muslim students also can speak regularly with an imam since the school became the first American university to hire a full-time Muslim chaplain seven years ago.

Although there are no accurate figures on the number of Muslim students at Catholic colleges, the numbers have gone up in recent years, according to administrators who have seen more students participate in campus-sponsored associations for Muslim students.

This increase is not just in large urban colleges either. At Benedictine University, just outside Chicago, approximately 15 percent of the school's 1,800 undergraduate students have identified themselves as Muslim, according to Mercy Robb, the university's executive director of public relations. And that's just the students who choose to identify their religious affiliation; Catholic colleges do not require students to do so.

Robb told Catholic News Service that the university attracts a lot of Muslim students because the school's "values are a fit for them personally."

At nearby Loyola University Chicago, the number of Muslim students also has gone up in recent years. Christopher Murphy, the school's director of university ministry, knows the population has grown because the campus mosque recently had to be reconfigured to make room for more women in the segregated prayer areas.

"Many Muslims are comfortable here and we are attracting more and more," Murphy said, noting that Muslim students "sense their expression of faith is not ridiculed" and they also know "religion is not a taboo subject here."

"There is a place for them," he added, noting that this year for the first time there are two women students who wear a traditional full burka on campus. It is a long garment that covers a woman from head to toe, with a veil over her face.

The school has an active Muslim Student Association with about 125 members. These associations are fairly common on Catholic college campuses today, organizing social and informational events aimed at fostering communication among Muslim and non-Muslim students and bringing about a deeper understanding of Islam.

Sometimes deepening understanding comes in simpler ways than just attending organized events, like rubbing elbows with people of different beliefs. For example, at Loyola, Muslim students have to walk through the kosher kitchen in the campus hall to get to their mosque. Just doing that helps to deepen relationships between Muslims and Jews, said Murphy.

He also is convinced that the presence of Muslim students on campus strengthens the faith of Catholic students.

"I think any time students at this age witness other people living out their faith, it makes it easier for them to give witness to their own beliefs," he said.

"It's not like we're doing something really unusual, but it is unusual," he noted, particularly emphasizing how Muslim and Jewish students are working together on campus. "It's allowed to happen here because we're faith-based."

Michael Galligan-Stierle, the outgoing assistant secretary for higher education and campus ministry for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, surveyed 3,000 campus ministers in the United States earlier this year to find out about college programs that bring Muslim and Catholic students together.

He presented his findings during a Vatican conference on migration this spring, telling participants about the increase in courses or seminars on Islam in U.S. universities, specific accommodations on college campuses for Muslim students with regard to food or prayer spaces and co-sponsored activities.

Just having a Muslim student presence on Catholic campuses or offering courses in different religious traditions is a start, noted Richard Yanikoski, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

"An education which promotes understanding of others' religious beliefs and traditions better prepares Catholic students, indeed, all students, to be effective agents of peace, justice and social reform," he told CNS.

Abed Bhuyan, a junior at Georgetown and president of the university's Muslim Student Association, said that attending a Catholic college has deepened his awareness of "God's presence" everywhere.

He said his father was glad he chose Georgetown because he was confident the university would provide him with "taqwa," or the Islamic concept of "God consciousness."

At Georgetown, there are about 400 Muslim students and the number has increased over the past seven years. Ninety-three percent of Muslim students are American-born.

Bhuyan, a New York native, finds spiritual strength in the quiet of the Muslim prayer room located in the basement of a campus residence hall. He also said it was has been important for him to see other faith traditions and now even senses there is a difference between him and those who do not attend a Catholic university.

He said the school's Jesuit mission to form "men and women for others" makes it easy to live out one's faith, no matter what it is.

---CNS