NMCC’s new tobacco-free policy
meeting officials’ expectations
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — It’s been a little more than two months since NMCC went tobacco free, and college officials say the new policy seems to be working.
“I think we’re where we thought we would be,” said NMCC President Timothy Crowley. “We spent a lot of time — a year before going forward — providing smoking cessation programs and informing people. We also spent a lot of time informing new students coming to campus about what they were going to come into, basically a tobacco-free environment. I think our work paid off.
“We’ve had some challenges … challenges being students not being off campus but being on the edge of campus, or getting behind a tree and having a cigarette. We’ve had some of that, but not a lot,” he said. “I think the weather has helped us because we’ve had a remarkable fall. People generally don’t mind walking off campus to have a cigarette.”
Crowley said the new policy is making smoking near the doorways a thing of the past.
“I guess the thing I’ve noticed the most is that we used to have people congregating close to doorways … although state law says you have to be 50 feet away from a door. Students were never 50 feet away, so you got smoke when you walked in some sections of the campus,” he said. “That just does not exist now and people don’t have to put up with it, which makes it much nicer for the students and the public.”
With winter fast-approaching, Crowley said the roadside where students have been congregating will be limited because of plows and snowbanks.
“We’re encouraging students to quit,” he said, “so that may be an incentive for them, but I think those challenges that we have of people being closer to the campus as it gets colder are going to increase, but overall I think people have been pretty receptive [to the policy change].
“We’ve got some students that are getting in their cars and leaving campus to have a cigarette, and I suspect there will probably be more of that and less of walking to the road,” said Crowley. “I think we’ll see some increase in traffic, but overall I think they are understanding that they just can’t be here and have a cigarette. It’s a behavior change and it takes time to make that happen.”
The new policy, which went into effect Sept. 1, 2014, is being enforced.
“Security has been giving warnings and talking to folks just letting them know that the next time it wouldn’t be a warning,” Crowley said. “It’s not just security … it’s all campus employees. We all said we would do it together, so it doesn’t become just one person’s responsibility. If we see someone violating the policy, we tell them they can’t do that. Eventually it becomes a disciplinary issue and becomes a matter that goes to the disciplinary committee. We haven’t gotten anywhere near that; there’s been nothing so far that would take it to that level, so I think overall students are handling the policy change pretty well.”
