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Winona State is backing up its recent wellness initiatives with a new policy that will make the entire campus smoke-free on January 12, 2009.
Currently smoking is prohibited in campus buildings including dormitories and within 25 feet of building entrances.
When students come back from winter break in January, they will have to cross the street from campus property to light up, something smokers may be unhappy about but a two-to-one margin of those surveyed support.
According to Student Senate President David Obray, when the Student Senate was approached about taking a stance on the measure a year ago, Senate members voted against it.
But audience members at that meeting disagreed so strongly with the vote that in the days following they collected 900 names of students who wanted the campus to be smoke-free.
Given the volume of interest, the Student Senate put the smoke-free question on its spring election ballot as a referendum item, and the results were hard to argue with.
Of the students who logged in and voted, the vast majority wanted a smoke-free campus, prompting the Student Senate to change its official stance on the matter and adopt the measure.
In a prepared statement, President Judith Ramaley said, “In accordance with our mission, we are devoted to improving the health and well-being of our campus community by setting an example of healthy practice.”
The university is engaged in a capital campaign to help fund its new 90,000-square-foot Wellness Center project, and going smoke-free helps WSU send a message that it is serious about healthy living. “Wellness and fitness are a major theme for the university, expressed through our Integrated Wellness Complex, our academic programs and our community partnerships,” said Ramaley. “This is the natural next step, to practice what we teach.”
Smoke-free campuses are springing up around the country, but Obray said at a Washington D.C. roundtable of other Student Senate presidents he was warned by others that such a policy might be difficult to enforce.
Peer enforcement and an honor system are the best tools for keeping the campus smoke-free, Obray said, but he is hopeful that a university committee charged with implementing the smoke-free change will devise a good plan for helping students stick to it.
When Moorhead University went smoke-free, student protests upended campus and traffic on nearby streets as students gathered en masse to object. Though he has heard feedback from some unhappy with the new policy, Obray is hopeful Winona’s transition will go more smoothly.
Smoking cessation help offered through the university’s health services may lead those who hate walking across the street to a smoke-free lifestyle, and that, Obray suggested, is one of the best outcomes possible. “Maybe this will be a good time for people to quit their habit and some good will come out of it,” he said.
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