Salem State extends smoking ban to entire campus

SALEM — Salem State College will ban smoking on its entire campus beginning next September, instituting what may be the toughest policy of any public four-year college in the state.

"It appears we're the first university ... in Massachusetts to go in this direction," college spokeswoman Karen Cady said yesterday.

Salem State currently prohibits smoking in residence halls and college buildings. The new policy will extend to athletic fields, walking paths and everywhere else on the college's three campuses.

The policy will apply not only to students and staff, but to construction workers, deliverymen or anyone else who steps foot on college grounds.

The stern action was taken following a yearlong study by a college committee, which surveyed more than 1,200 students, faculty, administrators and staff.

"The university has an opportunity to dramatically impact the health and welfare of the members of our community and guests by making a change in the currently accepted campus smoking practices," Executive Vice President Stanley Cahill wrote in an e-mail distributed around the college yesterday.

"One major concern revealed by the campus survey is that 25 percent of the respondents have respiratory health conditions. ... Fifty-nine percent of all respondents indicated their experience on campus was negatively impacted by secondhand smoke."

Salem State said it will launch a yearlong campaign to prepare the campus for the change to a tobacco-free campus.

There are plans to offer smoking-cessation programs to students and staff and to educate members of the college community about the harmful effects of smoking, secondhand smoke and other tobacco products, Cahill wrote in the e-mail.

The administrator also said that "tobacco cessation products and medicines may be prescribed to our students by university health services professionals."

In addition to tobacco products that can be smoked, the ban will include chewing and smokeless tobacco products.

With this move, Salem State joins more than 260 colleges and universities across the country that have banned smoking and tobacco products on campus, according to Cahill.

In Massachusetts, three community colleges — Cape Cod, Bristol and Mount Wachusett — have taken similar steps, Cady said.

Although the study was initiated by President Patricia Meservey, the collegewide survey showed that "this is the direction the majority of respondents wanted to go," Cady said.

Meservey made the final decision to implement a ban, beginning at the start of the 2011-2012 academic year, based on the committee's recommendation, Cady said.

During its deliberations, the committee considered the potential impact this could have on admissions and hiring but decided that health considerations were paramount, Cady said.

"There will probably be some potential students and employees who will be attracted to us for this reason," she said, "and there will probably be some who might think twice."