College house staffers back push for smoke-free dorms

Despite a contentious debate at Sunday night's Undergraduate Assembly meeting, most students and college house staff members seem to agree with the UA's proposal to ban smoking from college houses and Sansom Place West.

After a heated discussion, the UA passed a proposal that recommended that "the University take steps to prohibit smoking in any University college houses so that the right to a smoke-free environment is provided to all students."

And so far, there appears to be a good deal of support from not only the UA's constituents, but also from housing administrators, residential advisers and graduate associates.

Leslie Delauter, the director of College Houses and Academic Services, said she feels that the UA proposal was a very positive step.

"As an ex-smoker, I can sympathize with smokers, who will be inconvenienced by this proposal," she said. "But from my experience living in college houses, there are a number of problems with the way buildings are ventilated, and the secondhand smoke seems to bother people enough that [banning smoking in college houses] would be a logical step."

Delauter added that this proposal was "the kind of thing we would hesitate to implement without student backing, but with the UA's support, we can confidently move forward with this."

She also noted that this proposal needs to be presented to other organizations on campus, including the Residential Advisory Board and higher levels of University administration, before the recommendation is put into effect.

Many college house residents said they supported the proposal.

"I think it's easy enough for people to go outside if they want to smoke," said Engineering freshman Kristin Condello, a resident of Kings Court/English House. "There's no reason for [smokers] to expose anyone else to their secondhand smoke."

College senior Johanna Busch, a resident of Sansom Place West, agreed with this sentiment, but feels that this plan may be hard to implement.

"I think this proposal would be great," she said. "But I think there would be an outcry from the smoking population."

"This would also be very hard to enforce since the ventilation system makes it difficult to tell where the smoke is coming from," Busch added.

Support comes not only from the UA and students residents, but also from RAs and GAs.

Stouffer GA and Nursing graduate student Lisa Kutzing wrote in an e-mail to the UA that she has "a resident who has had issues with her asthma acting up due to a fellow resident smoking in his room. Their rooms aren't even right next to each other, but the smoke still manages to make it to her room."

Quadrangle RA and College junior Ed Youngstrom agrees with this sentiment.

"I let my residents smoke, and you can really smell it in the halls," he said. "It's an inconvenience to nonsmokers to allow smoking in the dorms."

Quad GA and Design graduate student Mike Berg sees the benefits in the proposal, but also notices some potential concerns.

"I think this really gets into some types of constitutional issues," he said, "and I'm not sure about the legality of it."

Nevertheless, he does feel that this proposal has "the potential to reduce some types of roommate conflicts."

Although this recommendation has already been passed by the University's Alcohol and Other Drug Task Force -- a standing committee of students and staffers -- along with the UA, there is no set date for when this proposal may be enacted.

The University Council committee on the quality of student life also passed a similar proposal against smoking in dormitories last Wednesday.

"It's definitely helpful that there's a groundswell of student support on this issue," Delauter said. "But this would be difficult to implement even though our [Ivy League] peer institutions have done it."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.