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Senate passes bill, ponders smoking ban
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The Associated Students of Boise State University Senate passed a bill Tuesday to pay for advertising for the April 7 speech by Hanan Ashrawi. The event starts at 7 p.m. in the Special Events Center in the Student Union Building.
“She will basically be talking about the injustices committed in Palestine,” Sen. Gabe Murphy said.
The event is also sponsored by numerous BSU departments and classes.
Murphy, when asked by other senators to describe Ashrawi’s experience, admitted he knew little about her book and activities.
“This is one reason why we should bring people like her to campus, because we don’t know,” Murphy said. “We need to know. Students need to be educated.”
The bill passed unanimously (15-0).
Put that out!
The Senate also heard from Ferdinand Schlapper, the executive director of Health, Wellness and Counseling Services, who attended in order to update the senators on the state of BSU’s drive toward becoming a smoke-free campus.
By 2010, BSU aims to be smoke free. Currently there is a 30-foot rule around most entrances on campus. In the future, smokers will be relegated to small smoking zones and eventually it will become a smoke free campus.
“We are going to aggressively offer cessation programs for anyone who wants to quit,” Schlapper said. “It’s not so much a choice as it is an addiction. If people are trying to quit, why are we helping them [smoke]? It’s like giving alcohol to an alcoholic.”
Schlapper said more than 100 schools across the country are smoke free.
Zoo Boise is smoke free and Schlapper said he is asking the City of Boise to make the Greenbelt the same.
There is a policy review committee Wednesday, April 9, and a 30-day comment period will follow.
According to the literature given out at the Senate meeting, a BSU survey said 86 percent of students and 92 percent of faculty agree that universities should be smoke free.
Schlapper said there will be no ticketing for smoking on campus; it will be a self-policing policy.
Schlapper said students would basically have to leave campus to smoke.
Signage and zones would be set up to let students know where they can and cannot smoke.
The Senate was asked to support the proposition.
DUSTIN LAPRAY
Editor-in-Chief