With an abundance of smokers here at Guilford, including 14.7% of incoming students, it would make sense for us smokers to have many places to congregate, indoors and out. After a student survey given last spring, the campus smoking policy changed to exclude all indoor smoking (aside from Bryan hall and the apartments) as well as smoking on the interior of campus. The survey showed a majority of students, staff, and faculty members favored a complete ban on smoking in Founders hall, which had a smoking area in The Underground last year. The survey did not mention any outdoor areas becoming off-limits.
Outlined in the survey, the new smoking policy should have provided us with a designated smoking area somewhere on campus when school started in Fall 2004. It was not stated whether this new spot will be indoors or out, but the point is, we haven’t seen it yet.
Being a first-year transfer student, I was surprised to learn that this policy was changed because of the results of a simple survey. Isn’t Guilford about consensus: deciding as a whole and everyone having a say? The survey did not have any input from this year’s incoming students, nor from all of the students attending last spring. How could it have gone through without the traditional consensus process that defines decision-making at Guilford? When a decision affecting such a huge number of people is being made, extra precautions need to be taken. With such a subject as smoking, I believe that smaller groups should decide on an individual basis. If the smokers of Mary Hobbs hall want to smoke on their great big porch, let them get together and decide for themselves what works for everyone. If I want to smoke on the Binford stoop, the people in direct contact with that stoop are the ones with whom I want to collaborate and come up with an agreement.
The new smoking policy and the way that Campus Life went about changing it are unlike most things Guilford. At the very least, a new designated lounge area for smoking should be selected to complete the process of the policy change. We smokers are now in a position of responsibility, where we must do something or nothing will get done.