UA residents vote against tobacco ban

By: Lindsey Pruitt

Posted: 12/3/07

More than half of the 1,428 on-campus students who voted in the Residents' Interhall Congress' opinion poll regarding the pending campuswide tobacco ban either disagreed with the ban completely or wanted it amended in some way, according to poll results.

The new tobacco policy, which was announced last summer, was developed by Mary Alice Serafini, assistant vice chancellor for Student Affairs and director of the Walker Health Center. The policy, which is scheduled to go into effect July 1, has sparked some controversy as it will ban all tobacco products from the UA campus.

Voting for the RIC poll took place between Nov. 26 and Dec. 1.

"We represent the nearly 4,200 students living on campus and consist of hall senates in every hall, a campuswide senate, and a nine-member executive team," said Johnny Biggs, RIC president. "Our mission is to be the voice of the on-campus student, and our many student leaders work hard to do just that.

"I wrote the referendum with the help of [Pomfret senators] Ryan Bauer, Amy Wallace, William Hogan and [director of leadership development] Whitney Perkins and several other senators," Biggs said. "I had a lot of input from other RIC execs and senators on what exactly to ask and what options would cover the opinions of most students."

"I'm a non-tobacco user and come from a family of non-tobacco users, and I believe the referendum is a little harsh," said UA student Brian Martin. "While the smell of smoke walking around the campus gets annoying sometimes, I don't think that's a reason to completely ban it.

"Tobacco users have chosen that lifestyle and should not be punished in this way because of it," he said. "There should be areas designated for smoking or rules against doing it near buildings."

"I am not voting for the policy," said UA student Lonnie Gibbons. "This is a public university under the domain of being an open public space. People should be able to exercise their rights that they have in the public space - smoking included.

"I understand and sympathize with the health concerns involved with this issue," she said. "Perhaps there should be smoking areas away from populated or typically busy areas. I think that the policy is intended to function on the basis of health and cleanliness concerns. In this way, these are good intentions, but I think that there are other viable solutions in light of these concerns," Gibbons said.

RIC representatives felt students should to be represented in the decision whether to implement the policy, Biggs said.

"The UA talks a lot about being student centered," he said. "Indeed, this is evident in many aspects of our great university. However, we feel like we were completely left out of this decision and that this decision affects students living on campus more than any other individuals associated with the UA.

"Many students are very upset about this policy," he said. "We were elected by on-campus students to represent their interests. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't address this issue in some way.

"We could have simply passed a resolution that would tell the UA that we agree or disagree with the policy," Biggs said. "We decided, however, that having more than 1,000 students express their opinions on the issue through an unbiased referendum would mean more than 40 senators sending a resolution to UA officials."

All students were e-mailed a link to a UA voting page, where they are required to enter their UA username and password in order to verify the fact that they are on-campus students and that they vote only once, Biggs said.

"We also set up a polling station with laptops available for voters outside of the Union Thursday night," he said.

"Originally we thought a turnout of about 25 percent would be a success. Anyone who is familiar with college campus voting trends understands that 25 percent turnout on any type of referendum or election is fantastic. By Friday, we had a 34 percent turnout... more than 1,400 on-campus students," Biggs said.

As of Friday afternoon, 1428 of the 4,186 on-campus students had voted. Nearly one-third of those students wanted the policy amended to allow designated smoking areas and the use of smokeless tobacco. While more than a quarter of the students opposed the policy in its entirety, about 42 percent supported the policy in its entirety.

"When analyzing this data, I think it is important to recognize that while the 42 percent figure is the highest percentage, if you combine the totals of student who seek to amend the policy and those who are entirely opposed to the policy, a 58 percent majority is reached. Therefore, over 58 percent are opposed to this policy on some level," Biggs said.

"It is obvious, so far, that a majority of students are either completely opposed to the policy or would like to see the policy amended to allow for the use of smoke less tobacco and designated smoking areas," Biggs said.

"If nothing else, the voting will send a message to the UA that students want to be heard," he said. "Hopefully, in the future, whenever a major decision is made that has such a controversial impact on students, it will be available for public and student scrutiny before any decision is final. To my knowledge, this referendum will compile the opinions of more students than any other poll regarding this policy has previously done. I hope UA officials realize this and take their opinions into consideration."