UTC student Al Douglas was president of the Student Government Association at Chatt State when that campus went smoke-free two years ago.
It was the photos of the cigarette butts that did it.
As president of the Student Government Association at Chattanooga State Community College, Al Douglas was pushing hard to institute a smoke-free campus policy on campus. Student surveys had gone out, coming back with an unambiguous response: Get rid of smoking on campus.
“Over half of them wanted a smoke-free campus, about 67 percent,” says Douglas, now a senior in political science at UTC. “Of the smokers, over 20 percent also wanted a smoke-free campus.”
Along with educational seminars from the Hamilton County Health Department, local hospitals and other medical groups, Douglas came up with a more direct approach to get students’ attention: He had photographs taken of all the cigarette butts on Chatt State’s grounds, then turned them into a slideshow.
“It was 30 minutes straight, picture after picture after picture of cigarette butts,” he recalls.
Chatt State is now smoke-free and has been since the first of 2016.
Having gone through an extended education process before Chatt State completely banned cigarettes, cigars, pipes and vaping from campus, Douglas has some advice on how UTC can implement SmokeFree UTC, its yearlong push before going smokeless on Jan. 1, 2019.
- Explain that a smoking habit can negatively impact their ability to get a job since some companies simply won’t hire smokers.
- Direct a lot of attention towards the dangers of secondhand smoke.
- Show that the common belief that vaping materials don’t have nicotine is not always true; some smoke shops mix their own vaping fluids and they may contain nicotine.
- Have plenty of smoking-cessation programs, counseling for smokers and support groups.
- Don’t get in the face of smokers about the coming smoke-free policy; be more subtle with posters, advertisements on the UTC shuttle, flyers, emails, etc.
Nor should UTC officials worry that the smoke-free campus will reduce enrollment, Douglas says.
“A student is not going to choose not to come to UTC because of a smoking policy,” he says.
In fact, some Chatt State smokers said they wanted a smoke-free campus.
“They said, ‘I feel like it would help me because I wouldn’t feel the need to smoke. And if I leave my cigarettes at home, somebody else won’t be able to offer me a cigarette.’”
