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Next Monday, a single question will be emailed to the Vassar student body: "Do you support not allowing smoking on Vassar's property?" The campus-wide poll is the result of talks within the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Student Life Committee and the Committee of College Life (CCL), which devoted its January meeting to the topic. "I want to stress that CCL seems reluctant to move forward with anything until we gather more information from the campus," wrote VSA Vice President for Student Life Charlie Dobb '12 in an emailed statement. "This poll is simply an information gathering tool. It will not determine policy, but merely inform CCL, and students sitting on it in particular, about student sentiment as the discussions continue."
The possibility of banning smoking on Vassar property is not a new issue. In 2010, the Drug and Alcohol Education Committee (DEC), a subcommittee of CCL, proposed a set of recommendations that would reduce smoking on campus in three phases. The first phase—most of which has been endorsed by CCL—involved unifying the College smoking policies across campus in regards to the "50 feet away from buildings" rule. The second phase would limit smoking by designating certain smoke-free zones. The third phase, which has obviously not been implemented yet, is the DEC's ultimate goal of establishing Vassar as a smoke-free campus.
"From the DEC's standpoint, we still stand behind our initial recommendation of a gradual phased-in ban on smoking at Vassar," wrote Chair of the DEC and Head Athletic Trainer Jeffrey Carter in an emailed statement. "The current DEC survey does show a low percentage of student daily smokers on the campus. It is on the lower spectrum of the national average." The most recent campus-wide survey revealed that 83.7 percent of Vassar students smoke six times per year or less, out of a sample of 1095 students.
"Recent data on smoking on our own campus suggests that very few students smoke on a regular basis, but we know less about staff, faculty and administration," wrote Dean of the College Chris Roellke in an emailed statement. "Given the national landscape on this issue (now more than 600 campuses are smoke-free), I think [Vassar College's] interest in the topic has accelerated some." These colleges include all 23 City University of New York campuses, the largest smoke-free public university system in the country, and Barnard College, one of Vassar's peer institutions. Barnard decided to go smoke-free in March 2011 after its Student Government Association administered a campus-wide poll that found 72 percent of students supported a ban. In addition, the Culinary Institute of America, located just a few miles from Vassar College, has implemented an intermediate option: their campus is smoke free with the exception of a few scattered gazebos in which students are permitted to smoke.
Carter echoed Roellke's concerns about non-student members of the Vassar community. "One topic that needs to be addressed is that the smoking population on campus does not just encompass students, but includes faculty, staff, administrators and outside contractors/suppliers. To fully create a smoke-free campus, these groups will need to be brought into the discussion. Programs for smoking cessation will need to be made available for both students and these individuals." Low-cost smoking cessation workshops were first offered by the College in 2010 when the smoking ban was first recommended by the DEC, but they were cut the next year due to staffing and time restraints. Currently, the Office of Health Education offers one-on-one smoking cessation support to students.
The results of the poll, which will be made public to all members of the campus community, are unlikely to result in any immediate policy changes. "[VSA] Council does not have the authority to implement this kind of policy. That can only be done by CCL, in accordance with its policies and procedures," wrote Dobb. "All Council could do is suggest to CCL, likely in the form of a resolution, that a smoking ban be implemented. Council would likely use the poll as data in debating whether or not to issue that resolution, [and] that resolution, like all resolutions, would be debated and voted on on the Council floor."
Carter agreed that establishing Vassar as a smoke-free campus would require more time, research and discussion with the community. "Just because a poll [could potentially say] that students want a smoke-free campus, does not mean there will be no other hurdles to campus-wide implementation," he concluded his email. "I do think that overall student support of the recommendation may get the ball rolling a little fast[er]."