WKRN, Nashville, Tennessee News, Weather, and Sports |Vanderbilt Univ. restricts smoking to designated areas

Vanderbilt Univ. restricts smoking to designated areas

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Vanderbilt students, faculty and staff will return to a mostly smoke-free campus this semester.

Beginning August 1, smoking on the academic campus will only be allowed in designated areas that are marked by signs and have an area to dispose of cigarettes.

Michael Shannon will be a sophomore this fall and likes the new smoking policy.

"I think it's a good idea," he told News 2, "so everyone else doesn't have to breathe in peoples' smoke."

Shari Rose, a soon to be senior, wonders if putting all the smokers in one spot could be even worse for peoples' health.

"I'm just thinking during the winter when you have a huge group of people huddled together," said Rose, "Even though they are smoking and it's bad for your health, I think it'll be even twice fold."

The hospital campus at Vanderbilt switched to all designated smoking areas almost two years, and university health officials told News 2 it was time to get the academic campus on the same page.

"It's really all about the health of the people on our campus," said Dr. Louise Hanson, medical director of the student health center.

She told News 2 that less than 10% of the campus identifies themselves as smokers and hopes the new policy may give people the excuse to quit smoking.

"The hope is certainly, especially for the casual smokers, that this initiative will prompt them to make a decision they may have been thinking about for a long time," Hanson said.

Mary Azzo's daughter is an incoming freshman at Vanderbilt and told News 2 she is glad smokers will only be allowed in certain areas.

"It's not something that's just personal," she said, "it affects everybody's space."

By implementing the new policy, Vanderbilt University joins over 500 other schools that have made the same decision

Under the new initiative, there will be about 18 designated smoking spots across campus.