Administration will soon review the university's smoking policies, an evaluation which could result in the addition, relocation or elimination of some or all of Ball State's designated smoking areas.
Kay Bales, vice president of Student Affairs, is looking to put together a small group of people to look at the university's smoking policy to see if it's effective and to determine any changes, university spokesperson Joan Todd said. Bales could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
"There's nothing immediately slated to be changed," she said.
Todd said no timeline has been set for the evaluation and that reviewing policies is something administration does regularly to ensure they're functioning as planned.
President Jo Ann Gora talked about the policy in a University Senate meeting recently, according to The Star Press.
"We are smoke free, but we have places where people can smoke on the periphery of the campus," Gora said. "At this point, we have 11 places where people can smoke. And so the question is, are we really a smoke-free campus with that many places where people can smoke, and should we become more of a smoke-free campus and have fewer places to smoke?"
Ball State's current smoking policy has been in place since March 2008. It allows for smoking in designated areas only and defines smoking as "the carrying or holding of a lighted cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other lighted smoking equipment or the inhalation or exhalation of smoke from any lighted smoking instrument."
People who are caught smoking outside of those areas may receive a $50 fine.
While having areas available on campus where students and employees can smoke might seem to contradict the label "smoke-free," Todd said the term allows for the inclusion of designated smoking areas.
Kevin Kenyon, associate vice president for Facilities Planning and Management, said he agrees.
"I think it's fair to call it a smoke-free campus because there's no smoking permitted in the buildings and there are areas outside the buildings that are considered smoke free," Kenyon said. "In fact, if you go by acreage, there is a very, very small percentage of total acreage that smoking is permitted in."
Ball State's designated smoking areas do make it ineligible for inclusion on Indiana's list of entirely smoke-free college and university campuses. The 17 schools listed as having "no smoking at all anywhere on campus" include Indiana University and its campuses, Anderson University and the majority of Ivy Tech's campuses.
Non-smoker Silas Zartman, a senior sociology major, said he doesn't mind that Ball State has designated smoking areas.
"I honestly don't even know where they are," he said. "So they must be out of the way enough."
Zartman said he would rather the university have designated smoking areas than to completely disallow smoking with the possibility of students doing it anyway, leaving their cigarette butts and empty packs wherever on campus grounds.
Freshman Hannah Fette, a smoker of three years, said she is also pleased with the smoking areas because they help contain the trash and debris associated with smoking. The advertising major said she finds the current locations of smoking areas fairly convenient, but would be displeased if the university eliminated them all.
"I would not like that at all," Fette said, taking a drag on her cigarette. "I would probably just quit."
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