The Board of Trustees unanimously decided to snuff out smoking on Ball State University's campus, and a group of students helped make that happen, according to university officials.
Kay Bales, vice president of student affairs, said Ball State will begin an awareness campaign to alert the university about the policy change.
The university will also spend the next several months placing signs, constructing areas where smoking will be allowed and promoting cessation programs before the ban is implemented March 17, Bales said.
"March 17 is the first day back from Spring Break, but it gives us an opportunity to change our maps, put some additional programs in place, and really give people the opportunity to really learn about the policy," she said.
The Board of Trustees approved the implementation plan that was presented in the Smoke-Free Implementation Task Force Report, Bales said.
According to the report, the policy will limit smoking to 11 designated areas on campus.
Bales said the board voted on the ban Dec. 14 after President Jo Ann Gora's cabinet approved it the week before.
STUDENTS HELP WITH CREATION, IMPLEMENTATION OF POLICY
Bales said two students from the Business Fellow Smoke Free Project and a representative from Student Government Association were on the task force along with 10 faculty members and administrators.
"Everybody on the task force played an important role," she said. "[The students] were very vocal. They shared their opinions and said how other students would respond. They certainly were as important as all the other members of the committee."
Bales said it was important to have students on the task force.
"That was absolutely critical," she said. "We knew it was important to ask someone from Student Government Association to be a part. We thought it would be important for the business fellows students because they had been doing the research and knew about it already."
Jeff Clark, a task force member who mentored the business fellows project, said a group of students participating in a business fellows project, which began Spring Semester 2007, helped begin the ban.
The student project originally intended to help smokers from Delaware and Madison counties who were not in college kick the habit, Clark said.
"As it began to evolve, we began to support it on campus," he said. "We did the work to advocate it and the discussion started."
Clark said the students met with student organizations such as SGA as well as staff, faculty and administrators.
Clark said he and co-mentor Susan Clark filed for a project extension into Fall Semester.
The students spent the semester advising the university about marketing and communications for the ban, Clark said.
The students also worked with the Health Center to provide and promote smoking cessation classes, he said.
"In addition to [communicating], it was really kind of a feedback," he said. "If we're going to go smoke free, we need to provide means for smokers for how to deal with that."
The business fellows will provide a final report at the end of Spring Semester, Clark said.
"With the success of the ban, it really depends on everyone on campus," he said. "Everyone needs to have a role in that. At least the sense from the task force I got is they want to focus more on the educational approach. That seems to have worked on other campuses. I don't know if we every have a policy everybody agrees with."
University to promote educational programs
Bales said a major focus for the task force before the ban is implemented is promoting educational programs to help smokers quit the habit.
According to the task force report, the university will begin several awareness and cessation programs such as peer-facilitation, help hotlines and an online toolkit.
Patty Hollingsworth, director of health enhancement programs, said she is responsible for supporting employees who want to quit smoking and health educator Lisa Thomason will be mainly responsible for helping students.
Health enhancement is also working with the Health Center smokers who want to quit using pharmaceuticals, Hollingsworth said.
"Not everybody is the same," she said. "We just want to make sure we're supporting everybody who want to quit."
Thomason was out of town during Winter Break and could not be reached for comment.
Hollingsworth said several employees sought help with quitting smoking before the Board of Trustees approved the ban.
"I do know that, even before the smoking policy changed, a number of employees have been over to the clinic to discuss options with nurse practitioners," she said. "Things don't change in a day. We just need to be patient with students and employees. We're not asking them to stop smoking; we're just asking them to not smoke here."
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