The Eastern associate director of health service discussed implementing a program to make Eastern a tobacco-free campus during the Council on University Planning and Budget meeting Friday.

The possibility of reducing the amount of Eastern phone books was also discussed during the meeting.

Eric Davidson, the associate director of health service, said the Alcohol and Other Drug Coalition has been lobbying for a tobacco-free campus since 2005.

“Becoming a tobacco-free campus is important for many reasons including the obvious health risk,” Davidson said. “It is damaging to the smoker and shortens the life of the smoker, especially with dangers to lung cancer.”

Davidson said they implemented a campus survey in 2007 of about 700 students and 71 percent of participants agreed that people have the basic right to breath smoke-free air.

“I think that by allowing smoking and tobacco use, we are encouraging smoking and tobacco use,” Davidson said. “There are currently 60 locations on campus where smoking is allowed.”

Richard Wandling, a professor of political science and a council member, said making Eastern a tobacco-free campus might have overly negative consequences with faculty, staff and students.

“From what I have seen, smoking becomes an overall way of social being for people who have been addicted for long periods of time,” Wandling said.

“I can see possible stress and tensions rising from implementing this, and we have to ask ourselves if this may be going too far in society toward modern Puritanism.”

Another issue discussed with becoming a tobacco-free campus was the difficulty of enforcement and if it would be better to offer programs to encourage quitting instead of mandating it.

Davidson said he plans to gather feedback from other governing groups such as the Faculty Senate, Staff Senate and the Civil Service Council before asking for votes.

William Weber, vice president for business affairs, discussed the possibility of reducing the amount of Eastern phone books to about a tenth of how many have been printed.

Roger Beck, chairman of the Council on University Planning and Budget, suggested creating a place on the Eastern website where the phonebook would be available.

Jenna Kuehl, the Residence Hall Association appointee to the Council on University Planning and Budget, said she thought it would be beneficial to reduce the amount of Eastern phone books.

“I have noticed that in a lot of the residence halls, there are stacks and stacks of these phone books in the lobbies with no one utilizing them,” Kuehl said.

John Poshepny, a senior finance major and a student representative, agreed.

“From what I have noticed from seeing the stacks when I walk around, in my opinion I think it would be wasteful to keep printing them as we do,” Poshepny said. “I think it would be good to have one in each department and at each residence hall desk, but I don’t see why so many would need to be printed.”

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].