BY BARBARA LEWIS, Staff Reporter
Central could be implementing a policy that would effect smoking areas on campus.
The Associated Students of Central Washington University Board of Directors (BOD) is conducting a survey on student opinion about smoking on campus.
“The clean air campus challenge was proposing, actually, that all college campuses within the nation should be smoke-free by 2017,” Scott Kazmi, BOD vice president for student life and facilities, said. “We were wondering if that was actually in the students’ best interest and if that’s what students wanted.”
According to a survey done by the national college health assessment, a majority of Central students realize that smoking on campus is an issue. The debate is the importance of the issue.
“I think if you don’t like smoke, there’s plenty of room to avoid it,” Michael Esquivel, sophomore technical education major, said.
Though not all smoking spots can be easily avoided.
“You can’t choose not to walk by the SURC when you’re going to school,” Karissa Carpenter, junior elementary education major, said.
The SURC is a popular smoking spot on both its East and West patio. It is a spot that is popular for nonsmokers as well, so it has been a main concern regarding smoking policies.
“We’re also trying to work on banning smoking from the east and west patios of the SURC,” said Jacob Wittman, BOD executive Vice President.
Banning smoking on college campuses is gaining popularity in the nation.
“Currently, there’s about 1,200 universities across the nation that have completely smoke-free campuses… 60 of those are in the northwest,” Wittman said.
Many students believe that going completely smoke-free, though, is unattainable.
“I think people have the right to smoke… [but] there should be restrictions,” Carpenter said.
To protect the rights of the students, but also protect non-smokers from second-hand smoke, another option was needed.
“We thought that it would be good to work with both groups and find a compromise to create smoking designated areas around campus,” Wittman said.
These areas would be out of the way enough so that students could easily avoid second-hand smoke, yet in a convenient area for smokers to have a cigarette without having to go a burdensome distance.
These restrictions would be in accordance with the Washington Clean Indoor Air Act of 1985 which states that smoking in public should be restricted to certain areas.
Central’s BOD wanted their survey to not only raise discussion but also to get statistics of smokers on campus and a better idea of the support they’d receive from students if more non-smoking policies were enacted.
The BOD will be presenting their findings from the survey on Feb. 25 in the SURC pit from 11a.m. – 1p.m. and will be answering questions and asking to hear students’ concerns on the issue.
“We want to know what the faculty and staff have to say about it too,” Doug Fulp, wellness center health educator, said.
So far, banning or restricting smoking on campus is an issue that the BOD wants to gain student opinion on so they can take initiative in a direction in students’ favor.
“Everything is still in the discussion phases,” Kazmi said.
The wellness center will be conducting their own survey on faculty and staff opinion about smoking on campus, starting next week at the resource fair.
“From a public health standpoint it is a trend nationwide to go tobacco-free or smoke-free,” Fulp said.
