While some individuals are continuing to create New Year’s resolutions, Marshall University’s Student Health Program is in an effort to make smoking cessation an option for campus. According to the West Virginia Division of Tobacco Prevention’s website, tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death in the United States. The website also states that smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and affecting overall health.

The Student Health program will be offering smoking cessation classes beginning in February. The classes will be available to students by contacting Student Health offices.
Amy Saunders, coordinator of the Student Health Education Program, said after doing research, the majority of data proves over the past three years, students do want a smoke-free campus.
“We continue to do research on this topic,” Saunders said. “For example, on Assessment Day in April we will conduct online surveys and look closely at those results. Our results in the past have indicated the majority of students are tobacco-free on campus,”
The Student Health Education Program has also formed a committee to look at smoke-free campuses and tobacco prevention. The committee is currently working with not only Marshall’s campus, but the Tri-State region as well. The program is interested in helping Huntington High School receive smoke detectors for their restrooms to help decrease smoking on school grounds.
Along with their work in this area, the committee is also planning to attend the Tobacco Free Day at the Capitol on Friday, Feb. 24.
A tobacco quit-line is also available to those who seek help to stop smoking. The West Virginia Tobacco Quitline was established in July 2000 and since then has enrolled more than 50,600 individuals. Those interested in participating in individual phone coaching to cease tobacco use can call 1-800-QUIT-NOW. Participants will also receive free nicotine replacement therapy, which includes patches and gum.
Teresa Mills, with the Cabell-Huntington Health Department, said the quit-line is free to individuals 18-34 years of age, and other ages depending on insurances.
“This specific population covers Marshall students and offers them an opportunity to receive free and easy access to help,” Mills said.
Smoking is prohibited in any Marshall building, including dormitories. In order to light a cigarette, an individual must be within at least 10 feet away from a building on campus.

When students return to the University of Maine at Farmington campus this week, they’ll find that a new tobacco-free policy aimed at promoting health and wellness began this month. “UMF is committed to promoting a healthy environment for our students, faculty, staff and community,” UMF President Theodora J. Kalikow said. “This new policy is a positive step in helping to reduce health risks and encouraging healthy lifestyle choices.”

UMF’s new policy is based on the international consensus of medical authorities that smoking, secondhand smoke and tertiary residue from smoking are harmful to an individual’s health. Tertiary tobacco smoke residue clings to the clothing of smokers.

The tobacco-free policy covers all tobacco products, including but not limited to cigarettes, cigars, snuff, chewing tobacco and non-FDA approved nicotine delivery devices, such as e-cigarettes. It applies to the entire campus, including athletic fields and parking lots.

This initiative was born of the committed work of the UMF Tobacco Task Force, a group of faculty, staff and students who joined forces in 2005 to help limit the campus community’s exposure to secondhand smoke. They began working in earnest on the development of a smoke-free policy for the campus in 2007.

Prior to that, UMF smoking policies complied with all Maine laws prohibiting smoking in university buildings and in outside areas of the campus where nonsmokers might be exposed to smoke. A smoke-free corridor was created on the UMF campus in 2002, in addition to smoke-free areas, including handicapped entrances and UMF-owned vehicles.

To support the UMF community’s transition to the new tobacco-free environment, the university is making smoking-cessation guidance available through the UMF Health Center. For additional assistance, UMF is making connections available to resources such as the Healthy Community Coalition, Healthy Maine Partnerships (Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention), Partnerships for a Tobacco-Free Maine and the Maine Tobacco Free College Network.

New signs have been posted in all campus buildings to remind employees, students and visitors of their responsibility to maintain a tobacco-free environment.

The University of Maine in Orono initiated a similar tobacco-free policy in 2011.

Student leaders Krista Paul and Megan Kiehl have started work on a project they hope will turn UW-Whitewater into a smoke-free campus. After spending the last couple of years researching the effects of smoking on students and the success of other campuses which have gone smoke-free, they said they are ready to take the next step, asking the opinion of the students.
Paul said a survey will be released to guage student interest on the topic in upcoming weeks, allowing students to share which direction they would like to see UW-Whitewater take.

According to the group, their main goal is not to infringe on anyone’s rights, but rather to make campus a healthier place for everyone and gauge the interest of the student body.
Paul and Kiehl said they have taken special training on how to educate college students about the effects of smoking and secondhand smoke. They said the effects of secondhand smoke are the same as the effects of smoking, a major concern being secondhand smoke could aggravate asthma symptoms.
If Whitewater moves forward with the decision to become smoke free it would join two other UW System schools: UW-Stout and UW-Baraboo/Sauk County.
If the policy goes forth, the group said they hope people will be healthier on campus.
However, Paul and Kiehl said they don’t want to cause problems in the community by forcing smokers to cross into community members’ lawns to smoke and having designated spots on campus for smokers is a reality.
One problem they said they see with the rule already in place is if smokers need to be 25 feet from the doors of the UC, they end up next to the playground exposing children secondhand smoke.
According to Paul, the group is already working on providing help to smokers who want to quit with cessation services.

Smoke-free air policies on college campuses may reduce students’ smoking rates, a recent study found. Researchers at Indiana University found that smoking was substantially reduced there in the two years after the campus instituted a policy that banned smoking on campus, including outdoor areas. Colleges in the Chattanooga area have policies that vary in the extent to which they allow smoking in outside areas on campus.

The University of Indiana study shows the smoking rate decreased and smokers smoked less from 2007 to 2009 despite the fact that the policy was minimally enforced, said Dong-Chul Seo, one of the study’s authors.

In comparison, the study found that the smoking rates and the number of cigarettes smoked increased during the same time period at Purdue University, where smoking was allowed at least 30 feet from campus facilities.

According to statistics cited in the Indiana study, nationally in 2009 about 22 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds smoked cigarettes. The smoking rate among college students peaked in 1999 and declined throughout the next decade.

Because students at Indiana who continued to smoke were not penalized, “this is a surprising result,” Seo said. However, the findings might be explained by the sharp increase in students’ awareness of the policy and the university’s publicity of the anti-smoking message on a campus bus, he said.

Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn., has a policy like that of Indiana’s, banning smoking everywhere on campus, including in all outside spaces, said Vice President of Administration Walt Mauldin.

The campus has such a policy because smoking can be detrimental to people’s health, Mauldin said. He said that people try to adhere to the policy but may smoke elsewhere.

About five years ago, the college — affiliated with the Church of God — started putting up signs on athletic fields notifying people of the policy, Mauldin said. However, he said the policy has probably been in existence since the school was founded in 1918.

“It’s been a tradition here,” Mauldin said. “Our denomination supports that view.”

Covenant College, another Christian school, prohibits students from possessing or using tobacco on campus, according to its student handbook. In many circumstances, students are also prohibited from possessing or using tobacco products off campus as well.

Other schools in the area ban smoking inside but do not completely ban smoking outside.

Last month, the University of Tennessee system issued a new system-wide policy that bans smoking within 25 feet of doorways, windows and ventilation systems outside. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga already had a similar policy in place.

The new system-wide policy was designed to implement overarching guidelines and to comply with state laws, UT system spokeswoman Gina Stafford said.

UTC junior Rachel Stimson said she supports the policy because she doesn’t want to smell cigarettes at entryways to buildings.

“Overall, it’s a good thing,” she said.

While she thinks it’s hard for the school to prevent students from smoking off campus, “they can enforce anything they want to enforce” on campus.

Chattanooga State Community College’s policy, which was implemented in 2007, bans smoking within 50 feet of buildings, said Chattanooga State spokesman Jeff Olingy.

The policy is designed not to segregate smokers but to ensure that those who don’t smoke are not negative impacted by fumes, Olingy said.

“We’re not here to tell people not to smoke,” Olingy said.

The school publicizes its policy in its student handbook and on signs on buildings, but students said the signs are not respected by all smokers.

“It’s kind of like half and half,” Chattanooga State freshman Chelsea Anderson said about the signs. “It all depends on the person.”

Allison Holmes, who attended Chattanooga State when the school put up no-smoking signs, said that people at the time would grab a tape measure to make sure they could still smoke without getting into trouble.

Holmes, who recently graduated from UTC, said she doesn’t think smoking bans work.

“It’s a silly idea,” she said.

More Drewids than ever may be blowing smoke. Though more college students than ever smoke, only a handful of Drew students list themselves as smokers. According to an Aug. 8 ABC News article, a Harvard School of Public Health survey of 14,000 students nationwide found one third of students to be current tobacco users. According to the survey, the number of cigarette smokers increased from 22 percent in 1993 to 28 percent in 1997—a 6 percent increase—and that percentage is still rising.

Only seven out of 420 first-year Drew students—about 1.6 percent—self-identified as smokers, however, according to a survey of the first-year housing applications for the class of 2015.

Four out of the 32 first-year transfer students at Drew—12.5 percent—listed themselves as smokers.

Though the percentage is higher, it is still low as compared to the national average. Undergraduate Housing Coordinator Bob Meade, who matches students every year based on whether they smoke, explained that there is an unwillingness to call oneself a “smoker.”

Several Drew students guessed the number of cigarette smokers on campus was significantly higher.

“I think half of the students here smoke and half don’t,” Michael Tyler-Smith (’15), who identifies himself as a non-smoker, said.

Zeezee Blair (‘15) agreed, estimating that 40 to 50 percent of Drew students are smokers. She said that a smoker is “someone who has at least one cigarette a day.”

She said that “more [students] than I expected smoke.”

Alexa Morrissey (’14) guessed that “at least half” of students smoke cigarettes at Drew.

She said that she sees many students out with their friends smoking during weekends, and added that a lot of students may not be habitual smokers, but social smokers.

Carolina Caicedo (’15) placed her guess a bit lower, at 30 percent. “[There are] enough for me to notice that people are smoking,” she said.

She explained that she did not include social smokers in her guess. “Smokers do it as a habit in their everyday life,” she said. According to the ABC News article, researchers attribute the rise in smoking to successful marketing campaigns that pushed smoking as “trendy.” Many Drew students disagreed and listed different reasons for smoking. Tommy Saxton (’13) explained that his primary trigger for starting to smoke as a 10-year-old was stress from his childhood.

He said, however, that he didn’t consider himself a smoker until the age of 16—when he started funding his own cigarettes.

“People told me it would relax me,” he said. “It helped occupy my time. Now it’s more of a habit.”

Saxton also cited social reasons for smoking. “It’s probably the biggest reason I have the majority of my friends,” he said.

According to Saxton, the media did not influence his smoking habits in any way.

Blair, who smokes about one and a half packs per week, said that she started smoking after living in the Middle East at 16 years old because it was such a common habit there.

She said that everyone around her smoked and her father smokes as well. She also cited the anxiety relief that comes from smoking as a reason for taking up cigarettes. When asked if she self-identified as a smoker on her freshman housing application, she said, “no, because I thought I was going to quit.”

According to Blair, after arriving at Drew and finding other smokers, she decided not to quit.

Tyler-Smith said he thinks students take up smoking for social reasons and stress relief as well.

He also described smokers as having the ability to take “quick, stress-relieving breaks” throughout the day.

Fresh Peer Educators Educating Peers (Fresh PEEPS), along with student volunteers, met in the Student Union to participate in the Big Butt initiative. The group picked up cigarette butts around campus last Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The purpose of the event was to rid the campus of as many non-biodegradable cigarette butts as possible, as well as to raise tobacco awareness throughout campus. All volunteers received free t-shirts and refreshments.

“The event really exceeded my expectations,” said Annette Baldwin, Fresh PEEPS advisor. “I was glad to see so many students come out and volunteer to pick up butts. I was also surprised about some of their comments about how the event increased their awareness of what cigarette butts are doing to our campus.”
Fresh PEEPS is a branch of PEEPS, student alcohol awareness group which focuses specifically on promoting awareness of the different aspects of tobacco. This particular event was focused on the environmental issues of smoking, and over 100 students participated.
“I joined Fresh Campus because I want people to be aware of the dangers accompanied with smoking,” said senior Rachael Haas, majoring in communication sciences and disorders. “Fresh Campus offers knowledge about tobacco use and gives it a fun twist to get people involved.”
Volunteers were able to fill 31 gallon sized bags with cigarette butts in only five hours. Several students commented on how they hadn’t realized just how many were lying around campus.
“I love doing Fresh Campus events because they show you how many cigarettes are just lying around,” said junior Ryan Pattison, business administration major. “After picking up some of the cigarettes today, I was walking to class and began to notice them more and more. I would’ve never thought there was that many just lying around on the ground.”
Some students credited their willingness to help to their love of Southeastern.
“It was a love lesson,” said sophomore Kamah Wilson, majoring in social work. “If you fall in love with this campus like I did, then you’re going to want to pick up a bottle, a piece of paper or a cigarette butt. I want to be able to sit somewhere and enjoy the beauty of this campus.”
For more information contact Baldwin at abaldwin@selu.edu or visit Fresh PEEPS’s Facebook page.

The Tobacco Free Mountaineers will meet today to discuss the next steps in achieving their ultimate goal – a tobacco-free campus. The group is a student-lead coalition that advocates for tobacco prevention on campus and in the local community. With Monongalia County’s vote on the smoking ban in the near future, the Tobacco Free Mountaineers will be discussing their opportunities to play an integral role.

Alyssa Iannamorelli, president of the Tobacco Free Mountaineers, said this is an opportunity for students to make a change that will not only affect the University, but the Morgantown community and county as a whole.
“We will be discussing our role on campus in getting the county to pass the smoking ban, and be the student voice to promote the smoking ban,” Iannamorelli said.
The Morgantown City Council has already passed an ordinance implementing smoke-free zones around the city, but the ultimate goal now is to make it countywide, Iannamorelli said.
Iannamorelli believes there are many benefits to having a smoke-free campus – even for smokers.
“If you cannot smoke in certain areas, then you are more likely to quit entirely,” she said.
The environmental limitations of the smoking ban would not only benefit the health of smokers, but greatly reduce secondhand smoke for local nonsmokers, too.
Iannamorelli said the WVU student body is integral to the smoking ban efforts.
“Hopefully, we will be using the county’s decision as a stepping stone to refocus the University administration on the importance of the tobacco-free campus. But, we really need to drum up the student support for that,” Iannamorelli said.
Statistics from the National College Health Assessment, a survey given by the American College Health Association in Spring 2011, will be presented at the meeting to address the social norms associated with tobacco.
“Many students think a lot more people smoke than is actually true,” Iannamorelli said. “So, we’re going to be discussing options on how to get that information out there.”
Quitline will also be discussed at the meeting – the campus cessation program to help stop smoking.
The meeting is open to the public and takes place in the Mountain Room of the Mountainlair at 8 p.m.

More than 530 colleges across the country have enacted smoke-free campus-wide policies, reports no-smoke.org. JMU has no plans to follow in their footsteps, Mark Warner said. Warner, senior vice president of Student Affairs and University Planning, said there has been no recent talk among administration of making the switch. JMU Policy 1111, “Smoking Regulations,” states that people who wish to have a smoking area destignated outside a particular building have to put in a petition with the building coordinator or other employee in charge.

Smoking is not permitted in structures used by the university, including parking garages, covered walkways, or temporarily enclosed structures, trailers and tents as well as structures placed on state-owned property by contractors or vendors.
Marsha Mays-Bernard, associate vice president of the Multicultural Awareness and Student Health Organization, is “impressed with the number of schools, JMU included, who have instituted anti-smoking rules on their campuses.”
Mays-Bernard and Beau Dooley, the associate director of the University Health Center and Student Wellness and Outreach, were surprised how well anti-smoking policies have taken off.
“These trend numbers are increasing steadily over the years,” Dooley said. “And now there are more non-smokers than smokers on campus than ever.”
About one in five JMU students smoke, according to UHC’s statistics.
He said more understanding of what consequences may arise for smokers on campus is needed before JMU could convert over to a smoke-free environment.
A shift into a smoke-free campus would never be a smooth transition because every year, new students are integrated with the older classes, according to Dooley. It would be off-putting for some students who are currently attending the university to all of a sudden switch to a completely smoke-free campus.
Freshman Joseph Taylor feels smokers, like him and his roommates, would “feel excluded and almost discriminated if a campus-wide ban was enforced.”
Taylor said he believes a smokeless campus might turn away students applying to JMU in the coming years.
Freshman Alice Minium, a political science and anthropology double major, recently quit smoking. She said she feels JMU would lose a lot of students, which would hurt both the school and students’ future potential.
Freshman Colin O’Donnell argues that if JMU were to implement a school-wide ban , then it should do what the University of Virginia is doing: have certain areas in which students are allowed to smoke and then others which are designated “clean air zones.”
Natalie Ferrara, a junior history and secondary education double major, who has smoked for two years, makes sure to never light a cigarette next to someone unless they are smoking too.
“I’m very self-conscious of the smell bothering people, but I also think that there are more people like me who are too,” Ferrara said. “However, people that cough and say rude things just irritate me.”
Eastern Virginia Medical School, Regent University, and Jefferson College of Health Sciences are all schools in Virginia that have banned smoking on their campuses.

Discussion of NMU’s becoming a smoke-free campus has been going on since the late 1980s and early 1990’s. It became a more serious consideration after Les Wong became university president in 2004. “Dr. Wong has a strong interest in increasing the health and well-being of the student body and faculty and staff,” said Cindy Paavola, director of communications and marketing. “He proposed a discussion about a smoke-free campus shortly after he arrived on campus.”

The research on what it would take to become a smoke-free campus was moved to the backseat because there have been other critical issues, such as dealing with the decreases in state appropriations and pressure on the budget. However, the consideration of a smoke-free campus seems to be the highlight of many conversations at NMU lately.
NMU student Laura Nagle, who recently quit smoking, views a smoke-free campus as positive.
“You do not need a cigarette that bad,” Nagle said. “It is a good way to increase will power. However, some students might see it as something that takes away from personal rights and choices.”
Paavola said a smoke-free campus is being considered to improve the current well being of students, faculty, and staff members. More universities, businesses, and states across the country are becoming smoke free as a way to be healthier.
“It’s really a national discussion, and NMU students and employees are addressing it from the local level of how it would impact their working, studying and living environments,” Paavola said.
Talk about health care costs has been an increasing topic of discussion on campus. There is more pressure to have employees contribute more toward their health care. As health care costs continue to steadily climb, the campus community has been focusing on how to control health care costs and improve the current well being of students, faculty, and staff members.
Freshman Devon Kyser is a smoker living in the dorms affected by the smoking ban on campus.
“I would be devastated,” Kyser said. “I am trying to start a hookah club on-campus and I probably would not be able to do that if NMU became a smoke-free campus.”
Another aspect to consider is how a smoke-free campus would affect student’s class work.
“When you have class on-campus for many hours of the day, it will become hard to sit in class and pay attention,” said Jason Wodek, a senior at NMU. “With very little time in between classes, a smoke-free campus would not allow me to smoke for several hours at a time. This will affect many students.”
Paavola said the university may put out another campus-wide survey again, like they have done in the past to collect information about how people feel on the topic. A committee might be created to develop recommendations to bring to the executive administration, since the campus is looking at different possible future health and well-being initiatives.
The committee member would take into account all of the past and current campus feedback on the topic. The president and vice president would decide whether to bring the proposal to the NMU Board of Trustees. If the smoking ban gets this far, then the Board of Trustees would have to vote on whether to adopt the plan to make NMU a smoke-free campus.
If the board approves NMU to become a smoke-free campus, the committee or another appointed committee, and areas of campus that are most impacted by the change will need to work on an execution plan, which could be a multi-year phase.