A committee to discuss a smoking ban on Ohio University’s campus will meet for the first time Monday morning.
The committee was formed after a resolution the Ohio Board of Regents passed in July encouraging college campuses to instate a smoking ban. OU’s committee has 19 members, including three students, five faculty members, 10 administrators and one Athens city representative.
“The first meeting will mostly be for introductions, reviewing the timeline and goals for the committees and brainstorming ways that we will accomplish our goals,” said Ryan Lombardi, task force chair and interim vice president for Student Affairs.
Lombardi expects there to be a series of forums to discuss how policies will be enforced, consequences if an individual gets caught smoking tobacco on campus, and how a decision to go smoke-free would affect regional campuses.
“Students’ input will weigh heavily on the work of this committee, but so will the input of faculty and staff,” Lombardi said. “This is not just a student issue, because we have 4,000 employees on the Athens campus, and I’m sure some of them use tobacco.”
Mary Kate Gallagher, a student representative on the committee, said she hopes the forums will be opportunities for campus representatives and administrators to emphasize the current university smoking policies.
“We need to start enforcing these policies,” Gallagher said. “I don’t mean doing something completely drastic by changing the entire university’s policy by banning tobacco. We need to work on enforcing the policies that we have now. We need to take baby steps.”
Some students and faculty both support a ban because of the negative effects of smoking.
“Basically, when I’m walking behind a smoker, the smoke from said cigarettes is a hit in the face,” said Alex Cool, a sophomore studying linguistics and German. “As many anti-smokers would agree, the secondhand smoke from any situation is just plain unfair and annoying.”
Though smoking is a personal choice, health consequences are a factor that should be taken into account when considering the tobacco ban, said Carisa Trapp, a Spanish instructor.
“Whenever I walk into Gordy, there’s literally a thick cloud of smoke,” Trapp said. “There should be certain areas for smokers. I think this campus should be tobacco free.”
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