University Reevaluates Campus Smoking Policy

Vice Provost for Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger has formed a committee to evaluate the smoking policy at the Homewood and Peabody campuses. The committee plans to either make the campuses smoke-free or to limit smoking to designated outdoor areas.

“We have heard loud and clear from students that they want us to examine this issue further – particularly with regard to the impact of secondhand smoke,” Shollenberger wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “It is standard practice throughout the United States for colleges and universities to ban smoking in buildings, including residence halls. Beyond that, a growing number of campuses have gone ‘smoke-free,’ banning smoking everywhere on campus. In fact, this past August, the School of Public Health began prohibiting all tobacco products in its facilities and vehicles and discouraging their use on all outdoor campus grounds.”

Shollenberger wrote that his committee will be drafting a report to be presented this summer to Robert C. Lieberman, the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, and Daniel Ennis, the senior vice president for finance and administration.

Barbara Schubert, the associate director for the Center for Health Education & Wellness (CHEW), and Fran Stillman, an associate professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, serve as committee co-chairs. The rest of the committee is composed of faculty and staff from Homewood and Peabody, a graduate student and senior Danae Johnson, the president of Hopkins Kicks Butts (HKB), a student-led anti-tobacco coalition.

HKB initiated the push for a smoke-free campus by approaching the SGA with a proposal in 2013. In response, the University conducted a survey to determine student opinions on smoking. According to Erin Yun, the deputy to the vice provost for student affairs, the survey showed that although most undergraduates approved of going smoke-free, most graduate students at Homewood opposed the idea.

Freshman Robert Lee, a smoker of Plai cigarettes online http://www.buycigarettes.eu/plai , said he doesn’t think the campus needs to be smoke-free. “Quite frankly, no one has to smoke, and no one has to stand beside me while I smoke,” Lee said. Freshman Holly Tice does not smoke but said she would oppose a ban.

“I think smoking’s bad in general, but I think people have a right to smoke outside,” Tice said. “It is a private university, and I think smokers should be able to smoke outside on campus.”

According to Yun, the University does not currently have a standard policy regarding outdoor smoking. “The policies that I’ve seen… [say] that there’s no smoking whatsoever in any University buildings,” Yun said. “The president, deans and/or directors may also designate, with appropriate signage, certain outdoor areas, especially entranceways, smoke-free.”

Schubert does not believe the University enforces policies about smoking in designated areas. “It’s certainly not consistent, I don’t think, across the board,” Schubert said. Yun said the committee will examine enforcement policies at other schools for reference.

“One of the things that we’ll be working on is benchmarking against other universities that have gone smoke-free to look at what types of enforcement mechanisms they have in place,” Yun said.