At Boise State University, smoking is banned in the buildings and they must have one smoke-free entrance where smokers are not allowed to huddle in the doorway for one last puff before going inside. But to some, that's not enough.The university's head of health services, Ferdinand Schlapper, wants to make smoking taboo in every corner of campus, including grounds and vehicles. If successful, Boise State would become the first four-year school to completely ban smoking, according to the College Tobacco Prevention Resource in Newton, Mass. "High-achieving students would be drawn to a healthier learning environment," said Schlapper, who thinks the entire state also should be smoke-free. "I want to eradicate this from the planet."
Schlapper's long-term plan, to be discussed Monday at a university cabinet meeting, would ban smoking everywhere on the 175-acre campus. A vote was not expected Monday and the plan would take months to implement if it was adopted.
He polled faculty, students and staff at the 18,600-student school and reported only about 34 percent support that idea. "We continue to pick on smokers in a policy like this; it goes a little too far," said political science professor Jim Weatherby, a nonsmoker. But 92 percent "agree that the desire to breathe clean air should take precedence over a smoker's desire to smoke," Schlapper said.
About 9 percent of students and 15 percent of non-faculty staff smoke, Schlapper said. Only three percent of the faculty smokes. No other four-year college or university in the country bans smoking, said Melissa Murphy of the College Tobacco Prevention Resource. About 20 two-year, nonresidential, technical or community colleges are 100 percent tobacco-free, according to an anti-smoking group, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights in Berkeley, Calif. "A lot of schools consider themselves to be 100 percent smoke-free, but it usually doesn't include the entire campus grounds; it's usually just campus buildings," Murphy said.