President Stanley’s Chief Deputy announced details for the campus tobacco free initiative at a Undergraduate Student Government senate meeting this Thursday.
The university plans to inform incoming students about the change and help create programs to help student smokers quit.
“The Student Health center has always had cessation therapies, but they’re stepping it up,” Chief Deputy Judith Greiman said. “The SHS will be providing free smoking cessation aids.”
Senator Alexander Bouraad asked for clarification regarding policing the act, since many students are still unaware of who would be in charge of enforcement of the initiative.
“This is something that on both faculty and student side, there is no extraordinary enforcement measure,” Dean of Students Timothy Ecklund said. “We don’t have UPD enforcing other policies that govern other faculty and staff.”
RAs aren’t expected to enforce the act either, they plan on having “community-based enforcement,” Greiman said.
Cultural differences for international students from countries where smoking is thought of in a different light became a topic of debate after the topic of informing students of the act was brought up.
“The message that this is a tobacco free campus will be included in the admissions process, it will be included when registering,” Greiman said.
The administration emphasized that they are part of a national movement on college campuses to go tobacco free.
“This is not a policy that says you can’t smoke,” Greiman said. It says “you can’t smoke on this campus.”
Stony Brook University will become tobacco free at the start of the new year.
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