At Loyola University, steps are being taken to help support this initiative in hopes of creating a smoke-free environment, or at least one that contains less smoke.
Fresh Campus, also known as Tobacco Free Living, is a program designed specifically for college campuses that encourages the prevention and termination of smoking, in addition to offering the education of the dangers of secondhand smoke.
“These services include passing out education about the effects of tobacco, providing ‘quit kits’ to smokers trying to quit, and will host a Freedom From Smoking group for students next spring,” said Andrew Crawford, staff counselor of the university’s counseling center.
Fresh Campus also hosts a student leadership series for students who are interested.
This is a great opportunity for students to learn leadership skills through workshops and trainings, which not only can be used on campus, but can be extremely useful later on in their professional endeavors.
Smoking is not only a health issue, but many see it as an environmental issue. Anyone interested in helping the Loyola community to quit smoking or the use of tobacco products to minimize secondhand smoke exposure are welcomed by the TFL program. Jasmine Barnes, mass communication freshman, and Raven Richard, mass communication freshman, did just this by going around campus picking up littered cigarette butts. During one Saturday of cleaning up the campus, they counted a total of 1,327 littered cigarette butts.
“We were getting all kinds of looks when we were picking them up. The construction workers in the palm court jokingly asked me, “Who did you piss off to get that job?”
“But, I just told them that it shouldn’t be a job. If there wasn’t smoking on campus, or at least if those who did smoke were more respectful about it then I wouldn’t be out there,” Barnes said.
“I didn’t think that it would be that big of a deal; or even that we would pick up as much as Raven and I did. I would like to make the pick up a regular event, and hopefully get that number down,” Barnes said.
Alex Dacey can be reached at [email protected]
