Student Association representatives submitted their suggestions for a partial smoking ban on campus to the Tobacco Advisory Committee on Monday morning, SA Vice President Jessica Cunnington announced at Monday night’s SA meeting.

The Tobacco Advisory Committee will present SA’s and other groups’ suggestions to the Wellness Committee, which will present its own suggestions to the university’s administration, SA President Neal Casey said.

This is the first time there has been a concrete route in place for the smoke-free initiative to reach the Syracuse University administration, and the initiative has been in the works for more than a year, Cunnington said.

A partial ban might involve prohibiting smoking a certain distance away from buildings or designating certain areas for smoking, Cunnington said. This probably would not involve ‘smoking huts,’ as was previously discussed, but simply smoking areas with benches, which is what the University of Rochester has done, she said.

Cunnington and Student Life Committee chair Taylor Carr serve as SA representatives on the Tobacco Advisory Committee. At the committee’s Monday morning meeting, representatives from the Residence Hall Association, interns from Health Services, and other staff and student representatives also presented their own suggestions, Cunnington said. 

There is also one member of the Wellness Committee — Allan Breese — on the Tobacco Advisory Committee; he will bring the suggestions of the Tobacco Advisory Committee to the Wellness Committee, Cunnington said.

Some members of the Tobacco Advisory Committee were more ‘gung ho’ in favor of a full smoking ban, and others had varying ideas of the level at which smoking should be banned, Cunnington said.

Casey said he was confident the Tobacco Advisory Committee would ultimately propose a partial smoking ban rather than a full smoking ban. A partial smoking ban is what Casey and Cunnington support.

Assemblymember David Woody was critical of Cunnington’s proposals and the methods she and the Tobacco Advisory Committee used. Woody said Cunnington’s job should be to create ‘proactive solutions’ and a definite plan of action, which should be in place now that SA has been working on this issue for more than a year. He also said more student opinion was needed and that more groups should be consulted.

Cunnington said her job has been to find out the general student population’s opinion and then present that view to the Tobacco Advisory Committee. 

She had spoken to the Architecture Student Organization and to international students about the proposed partial smoking ban, she said. Although reaction was not overwhelming either way, students were generally in favor of a partial smoking ban, she said.

Cunnington also said there were no plans yet for SA to vote on any formal resolution stating its views on the proposed partial smoking ban. But assemblymember Nick Iaquinto spoke up and said he plans to draft a resolution for next week’s meeting — SA’s last meeting of the semester — that would clearly state SA’s support for a partial smoking ban. 

Three weeks ago, Casey said he was in favor of a full smoking ban on campus, which caused some confusion among SA members. After Woody and assemblymember Sean Dinan raised this point, Casey clarified his views by saying he was indeed in favor of only a partial smoking ban, but had been debating the best way to present it to the assembly and to the committee to begin discussions. Casey said the final decision had been the ‘happy medium’ approach with the partial smoking ban.

He said he has no set goals for this upcoming semester on this topic and has to see what the Wellness Committee decides upon. Once a decision is reached, it becomes all about the desires of the student population, he said.

Said Casey: ‘It all depends on what the students want to see. We’re going to keep soliciting student feedback regarding this.’

Other business discussed:

• Academic Affairs Committee chair Bonnie Kong announced a ‘bookstore swap’ system is in the works and will hopefully be available next semester. This will be an online program in which students can exchange previous textbooks with the bookstore for the books they will need for the next semester, she said.

• Kong also announced the Academic Affairs Committee is working on a program that allows transfer students to figure out what classes and credits from their previous schools are accepted by SU.

spcotter@syr.edu

Published on April 25, 2011 at 12:00 pm