Group tries to raise tobacco awareness

By Aly Van Dyke

Thursday, November 19, 2009

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Photo by Alex Bonham-Carter

Monica Saha, Overland Park sophmore, and Bridget Heine, St. Louis senior, Peer Health Educators, chalk the sidewalk outside Malott Hall on Wednesday, November 18, 2009, for the Great American Smoke Out, drawing awareness to anti-smoking policies on campus.

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Map of non-smoking areas on campus

While Monica Saha wrote in pink and yellow chalk by the steps of Anschutz Library, onlookers tilted their heads to read the text: “No Smoking within 20 feet of Entrance.” It was written inside a green semi-circle 20 feet from the entrance. An ashtray sat right inside the line.

Saha, Overland Park sophomore, is a peer health educator with Student Health Services. She and two other peer health educators spent Wednesday afternoon chalking boundaries around buildings on campus to illustrate the campus policy posted on building doors that warns smokers to stay 20 feet away from entrances. The chalking was in preparation for the Great American Smokeout today.

As part of the nationwide event, SHS will host informational tables at Anschutz Library from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to answer questions about tobacco and provide resources to help people quit smoking. Weather permitting, another table will be at Wescoe Beach at the same time.

Although the University has participated in the Great American Smokeout for several years, this is the first year the students marked the 20-foot boundary.

“A lot of students don’t know about the KU policy,” said Ken Sarber, health educator with SHS. “We hope to remind students of the campus policy.”

Chelsea Brown, Olathe junior, has a cigarette after her English class in Wescoe Hall every Tuesday and Thursday. Now that the weather has turned, she seeks solace from the biting cold under the building’s overpass as she switches the cigarette from her left hand to her right to protect her exposed fingers.

Brown said she tried to stay 20 feet from the entrance because she didn’t want to bother people, but that she wasn’t exactly sure how far away she had to be. Also, she said, the ashtrays are usually closer to the doors.

“I don’t really know what 20 feet means,” she said. “So I just jump out to have a cigarette and hope it’s OK.”

The University policy prohibiting Brown and others from smoking within 20 feet of building entrances passed in 1993.

But Sarber said even though some students were aware of the policy, the rule wasn’t really effective.

“Having that policy doesn’t really change anyone’s behavior,” he said. “They’re still smoking right next to the doors.”

Part of the reason the policy isn’t effective, he said, could be lack of enforcement.

The policy instructs people to call the Department of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity with violations as a means of enforcement. Ola Faucher, director of the department, said the department received one or two calls per academic year.

She said most of the time, the student violators aren’t identified.

“If we can’t identify who the students are, it’s very difficult to follow up,” she said.

If it can identify a student, faculty or staff member, Faucher said, the department would work with the chairperson of the program the violator belongs to. After repeat offenses, consequences for students may range from a formal or informal reprimand to a student conduct code violation, which could result in expulsion.

Faucher said the department had issued one reprimand in the time she has worked with the department, but would not disclose to whom or when it happened.

Saha said she hoped the chalk lines would help people identify where they can smoke and protect non-smokers from second hand smoke.

“I hope they realize they shouldn’t be smoking close to the door and should respect others,” she said.

— Edited by Tim Burgess

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Comments

pantheon (anonymous) says...

Maybe they should move the ashtrays to about twenty feet from the door.

November 19, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

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