Smokers, you are about to be ostracized by Ball State University. Enjoy your last days of freedom. Smoke your last cigarettes in the armpit of LaFollette Complex. Soon the much loathed campus police will be ticketing you for smoking on campus property. The unfortunate crime is your Student Government Association, Kellie Conrad, sole student representative on the Board of Trustees and the administration who will neglect to back your rights as a student smoker.
Elected and appointed administration - student and staff - will make the final decision. Which will it be? No more smoking on a public campus where you pay tuition or work? Fortunately, SGA wants to hear your opinion before it decides. Today at the L.A. Pittenger Student Center, SGA will hold a debate about the ban. If you want your feelings, thoughts or concerns to be heard, head over to SGA at 3:15 p.m. If you can't, e-mail the following: SGA president or vice president, student trustee (whose vote reaches further than the SGA president's) or any SGA member. Do you think it's wrong to ban smoking on campus? Speak up. Don't be afraid to voice your opinion.
I am a nonsmoker. From my perspective this ban is impossible, idealistic and fringes on civil liberties. Students realize the health problems associated with smoking; that's not the problem. It is that the school is trying to regulate our personal lives. By forcing an on-campus smoking ban, it is using its power to tell us as students what to do or, in this case, what not to do. Once they pass this ban, what comes next - not being able to consume caffeine on-campus?
Also: who will write tickets to the smokers? Resident assistants already have enough to do. Campus police don't want to stalk the sidewalks for smokers. Student politicians probably don't want to spend afternoons writing tickets.
Maybe SGA President Betsy Mills, Conrad or Ball State president Jo Ann Gora will write tickets - which only seems fair if they vote yes.
Write to Ryan at ryanstemen@gmail.com
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
