By Curtis Creekmore
Did you know that the slash on a no-smoking sign runs from the top left to bottom right corner? Students living in the Health Sciences Campus residence hall may not be familiar with the sign.
One year ago, the dean of the HSC and the Board of Trustees decided to make the entire campus a smoke-free zone. The no-smoking initiative was an attempt to quell the unhealthy habit which was spreading rapidly through the city and the university.
Associate Dean of Student Affairs for the School of Medicine Dr. Toni Ganzel was on the Board of Trustees. “As the Health Sciences Campus, we felt we had an obligation to create an environment of health,” he said.
The new smoke-free environment, however, did not include the Medical/Dental Housing Complex, the sole residence hall on the downtown campus. The board felt that the complex was more of a family-oriented sector.
“They shouldn’t be treated differently than any other person living in an apartment,” Ganzel said.
This decision, however, is unbeknownst to some residents. When a representative of The Cardinal visited the complex, passing residents claimed that no one smoked inside the building. Administration statements and the housing Website contradict no-smoking signs which are located in the HSC residence hall.
The University of Louisville’s Belknap and Health Science campuses are now flip-flopped on the smoking issue. The Belknap campus allows smoking, but its residence halls are non-smoking. The HSC is a non-smoking campus that allows smoking in its residence halls.
According to Shannon Staten, director of university housing, the decision was merely a safety issue. She said if the Belknap campus was smoke-free, the buildings on campus would have allowed smoking, or vice versa. Since the HSC is smoke-free, the only places where smoking is permitted are on city sidewalks or inside the apartment complex. If the apartment building banned smoking, residents would be forced from their homes to smoke on a sidewalk.
“It’s just not really smart to be standing out on a street corner at all hours of the morning trying to smoke,” Staten said.
With a newly passed city-wide smoking ban set to be enforced in November, smokers seem to be very happy with the way the university has handled the situation. Of course, neither decision can please everyone, but Ganzel believes the decision has done more good than harm.
“People have been more aware of their fellow students, and there are fewer congregations of people smoking,” Ganzel said.
Both Ganzel and Staten stand firmly by their decisions to make the complex a smoking facility. Although the decisions were made for two separate reasons, the results go hand in hand.
