Student Association members debated how a possible revised smoking policy would be enforced at Monday night’s meeting.

A committee of several groups, including the Department of Public Safety, the Onondaga County Health Department and Syracuse University, has been looking into the smoking issue since April 2010. SA will report the opinions from its meeting to the committee.

A new smoking policy would involve a phasing out of smoking on campus over three years, and the first part of the plan would move smoking away from building entrances, said Neal Casey, the Student Life Committee chair.

‘We don’t know who’s going to enforce it,’ Casey said.

DPS was mentioned as one of the possible enforcers, but several SA members questioned how realistically DPS could enforce a revised policy because DPS would be busy dealing with campus safety.

‘I don’t think that they could enforce it completely,’ said David Woody, the Student Engagement Committee chair. ‘They’re not everywhere all the time.’

Woody spoke to a mix of smokers and non-smokers prior to the SA meeting and discovered they didn’t think DPS would be able to legitimately enforce the proposed revised smoking policy, he said.

One SA member suggested that instead of becoming a smoke-free campus, SU should try to educate smokers about not dumping their cigarettes on the ground. Another SA member questioned how the policy would affect international students who may be used to smoking in their cultures.

‘We need to look at international students and how we’re dealing with them,’ Casey said.

‘The purpose of this committee is not to condemn smokers, it’s not to say they’re evil people,’ he said.

Casey said his primary concern about smoking on campus was secondhand smoke.

Jessica Cunnington, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications representative for SA, said SA is looking into how other universities are enforcing their non-smoking policies.

‘We’re different. Every school’s different,’ Cunnington said. ‘There’s a million different ways we can go.’

At the meeting, SA President Jon Barnhart also discussed a Princeton Review survey done several months ago that ranked SU 20th under the ‘Little Race/Class Interaction’ category.

Barnhart said he talked to the person in charge of gathering data information at Princeton Review through e-mail. Barnhart looked at the options of getting SU surveyed again or having a Princeton Review official come to the school to further evaluate the results, though Barnhart said he wasn’t leaning toward pursuing one action or the other as of now.

The ranking was based on student answers to Princeton Review’s question, ‘Do different types of students (black/white, rich/poor) interact frequently and easily at your school?’ according to Princeton Review’s website.

Barnhart said some people are not looking into the methods used to take the survey.

‘A lot of people bring up this survey,’ Barnhart said. ‘And they spout it like it’s common knowledge.’

Other news at SA:

* SA plans to submit a proposal to DVD rental company Redbox to try and get one of the self-serving boxes on campus, Casey said. But he did not know where the box would be placed on campus, he said.

mcboren@syr.edu

Published on October 18, 2010 at 12:00 pm