The student smoking review committee has spent the past few weeks going around campus to gather research prior to an open student forum Dec. 4. The forum is open to all UW-Platteville students and the committee will use the opinions heard there and the results of a random survey to make their proposal on the smoking policy to the Student Senate.

“The open forum gives all students with an opinion, those who have concerns or those who agree with the current policy, to come and voice them to us,” Jeffrey Schwan, LAE senator and chairman of the student smoking review adhoc committee, said. “The committee itself will hardly do any talking; we will allow students to come in and talk to us and we will ask them follow up questions.”

The open forum is going to be held at approximately the same time results come back from a random survey that was sent out to 10 percent of the student population on Nov. 27.

“The survey is a random sample that should reflect what the students feel,” Schwan said.

“The survey went out to the undergraduate student body asking them if they favor keeping the current policy, designating smoking areas or prohibiting smoking on campus,” Jordan O’Connell, special projects coordinator of Student Senate and a member of the committee, said. “These will be the hard facts we will use when making our presentation to Senate.”

The committee has also taken time over the past few weeks to go to all entrances and exits around campus checking for evidence that the current 25-foot policy is or is not being followed.
“We have completed inspections on half of the buildings on campus looking for problem areas and will be done with the other half by the end of the week,” Schwan said. The committee inspections are intended to look for cigarette butts that are not placed in the proper containers or signs that people have been smoking within the 25-foot distance required.

O’Connell expected that most students would report that they are upset with the current smoking policy on campus but wanted to give everyone, including those who agree with the policy, a chance to voice their opinion before the committee makes their presentation to senate.

Student Health Services reported in a survey from Spring 2007 that 71.9 percent of UW-P students had never smoked a cigarette, and that only 2.6 percent of UW-P students reported smoking on a daily basis.

“We want everyone with an opinion to come to the open forum,” Schwan said. “This is your chance to voice how you feel.”"