Ohio University’s campus is looking like it might be butt-free sometime soon.
Ohio Board of Regents recommended that public universities consider implementing a tobacco ban in 2012, but the organization can only make suggestions, not enact policy changes. Since then, OU would be the fourth public state university to become tobacco-free.
A plan will be presented to OU’s Board of Trustees at its Aug. 29 meeting to ban tobacco on campus within the next three years. Ryan Lombardi, vice president for student affairs, headed the task force that composed the plan.
Secretary of the Board Peter Mather said the implementation of the tobacco ban resides with OU President Roderick McDavis and his administration and that the board was kept in the loop regarding the drafting stages of the policy.
“I would also say that the board appreciated the thoughtful and deliberative approach of the committee,” Mather said in an email. “They also were pleased that the committee represented a broad range of constituent groups across campus.”
Within the next three years, Lombardi said the task force will be working out the details of the policy.
“Year one will be working out the details and we’ll go from there,” Lombardi said.
Next steps for the task force would be to figure out how the policy would be implemented on campus and how to enforce it if the trustees decide to approve the plan.
OU’s tobacco task force sent out a survey to students and faculty. Out of more than 2,000 responses, 65 percent voted in favor of a tobacco-free campus, and 35 percent were against the initiative.
Ohio State University, Miami University and Cleveland State University all went tobacco-free after the regents passed a resolution under Chairman James Tuschman.
Eliza Smith, an OU junior studying child life and family studies, said she was surprised that many students approved of a tobacco-free campus.
“I’m neither for or against it because I think people should be able to do what they want when it comes to that. I wouldn’t be opposed to zoning, though,” Smith said. “I do get bothered sometimes by the smell of it, but not enough to make the campus tobacco-free. It wouldn’t be fair to smokers, really.”
Students from Cleveland State University, which also recently initiated a tobacco-free campus, had some positive reactions to the ban on their campus.
Raymond Bondad, a senior studying linguistics at Cleveland State University, said that tobacco on his campus caused some personal inconveniences.
“There’s an area right outside the main entrance of the library where pretty much all the smokers gather and it’s so inconvenient for all the non-smoking students to have to walk through that every day,” Bondad said. “As a non-smoker, I hope the ban plays its part in making the campus tobacco-free. Whether or not and how the ban will be enforced is another question.”
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