UALR Welcomes New School Year With Smoke-Free Campus

As faculty and students move in this weekend to start the new school year, smokers there are finding it will take a bit more legwork to be able to smoke.

Junior Justin Walker used to just come out through the doors of the school, walk 20 feet and light up a smoke with no problem. But starting Sunday that routine will change.

"When they first started talking about this I was gung-ho because I wasn't a smoker and then it passed and I've become a smoker and then a realize woops, this is not the greatest idea for me personally," he said.

The new policy bans smoking on all university property including its satellite campuses.

"I'm glad because I'm tired of walking to class and you have to wave out smoke going to class, so I think it's a good idea," said sophomore Michael Buchanan.

Parents on the other hand have mixed reactions.

Karl Payne whose freshmen daughter goes to the school says, "Cigarettes kill you and as a parent I'll be happy to know that I can't keep them from smoking but if [the school is] not going to make it easy to smoke, I think that's terrific."

Another UALR parent, Karla Burnette, says she is not a smoker and "I don't like to be around cigarette smoke and my kids don't smoke and I'm glad but it's a public university and I think there ought to be a place for smokers to smoke," she said.

Like many other universities that have already instituted the smoking ban campus officials at UALR say they have done a lot of thinking about how the ban will affect students and faculty members and they have given everyone enough time to get used to the idea.

Associate Dean of Students Debra Gentry says smoking may be an individual behavior but the university believes its a community issue.

"Students today expect a safe sustainable healthy campus they are coming to us with those expectations and the generation they are in now they expect those things so we are meeting the needs of many, many students."

Gentry says the university has a long list of programs that are aimed at helping students and faculty members quit smoking.
Starting August 17 through the 20, the school is holding a "Smoking Cessation Celebration" which will include games, food and fact sheets that will make the transition easier.

The university hopes the smoke-free policy will help prepare students and faculty members for next year when a new state legislation kicks in. That law will make it illegal to smoke on all state-supported college and university campuses.