It took us many years to arrive at a smoke-free campus here at Meramec. As chair of the Wellness Committee, I spear-headed the recent successful effort. You can read about our new campus policy on the district website, www.stlcc.edu.
The first thing I did during the spring of 2008 was to visit the regular monthly college leadership meeting, and to get permission to begin the discussion. Our campus president, Dr. Pai, was clear that he would not take any action towards a new policy unless there was a clear consensus among faculty, staff, and students. I brought Ty with me to this initial meeting, and he was able to provide the leadership with information about other smoke-free campuses and to allay any fears members of the leadership team might have regarding enrollment declines related to a smoke-free policy. I was given permission to open the discussion.
Next, I went to the three governance councils (students, faculty, and staff) and spoke, saying that the Wellness Committee wanted to open a campus-wide discusison on the topic of our current status as a campus with no restrictions on outdoor smoking. I talked about the dangers of second-hand smoke and the problems that had been reported by faculty, staff, and students who had physical conditions such as asthma, who were unable to walk betwen buildings from one class to another without passing through a solid cloud of smoke. There were lively discussions at each governance council meeting, but no clear consensus. The campus student newspaper interviewed me and a pro-smoking student, and presented a fairly balanced edition about the debate. The debate continued over the summer of 2008, and by fall was still continuing with no clear consensus.
The Wellness Committee planned and executed a campus-wide "Fresh Air Day" with a day-long outdoor smoking ban along with designated smoking areas inside temporary tents. There were also exhibits and speakers on both sides of the issue on that day. After Fresh Air Day there was a campus-wide survey that we offered by email to every faculty member, staff member, and student. We used Survey Monkey to create it and sent it out via email, to make it clear that there was only one vote per person. We had over 1000 responses, with the majority coming from students. Over 80% of the respondents favored restricting smoking. I presented those results to the three governance councils and to the Leadership Team. Each of the Governance councils passed a resolution restricting smoking in some way. Dr. Stephen Petersen, the Vice President of Student Affairs from our campus, then met with the chairs of each of the three councils and was able to reconcile the different resolutions and create a joint resolution, which was presented to the Leadership Team in December, 2008. In January, 2009 the campus implemented a limited smoking ban which banned smoking within 100 feet of building entrances. No smoking signs were put up, and ashtrays were moved to the newly designated spots. The limited smoking ban was intended to ease the transition from unrestricted outdoor smoking to this fall's smoking ban.
Effective this week, the campus has fully banned outdoor smoking, except for inside private vehicles on the parking lots. Classes begin Monday, and it will be interesting to observe the level of compliance. I saw some compliance issues last spring, but when faculty or staff explained the ne policy to students, they generally moved to the designated smoking area. So I expect a similar thing to happen this fall as well.
By the way, our fall 2009 enrollment at the Meramec campus is up 4%. I would not say this is due entirely to the smoking ban. But I will say the smoking ban has clearly not hurt enrollment on our campus.
Margaret Hvatum, Network Coordinator
Meramec Wellness Committee Chair
Associate Professor, Information Systems
St. Louis Community College, Meramec
(314) 984-7518