Dorm smoking ban approved

Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson approved a ban on smoking in undergraduate dormitories Tuesday after months of discussion with student leaders.

The proposal was submitted to Dickerson last fall by the Undergraduate Life Committee (ULC), a subcommittee of the USG. But the USG as a whole voted against the smoking ban in December, citing privacy concerns.

The decision to prohibit smoking in dorms comes in response to widespread concern about the effects of secondhand smoke and the fire hazard of lit cigarettes, Dickerson said.

All Ivy League schools, including Princeton, have already banned smoking in common dormitory spaces. Some also prohibit it in private rooms.

"I wasn't . . . 'pushing' for a ban on smoking in the dorms," Dickerson said. "I was just responding to the issue being brought to my attention by many determined students."

The move comes less than two years after the University began offering freshmen and sophomores the opportunity to live in substance-free and smoke-free housing within residential colleges. Upperclass students were first able to draw into smoke-free rooms in 1999.

Last year, 418 students entered smokeand substance-free room draw, an increase of 209 students from the previous year.

A 2004 University Health Services survey found that less than 20 percent of undergraduates smoke regularly.

The decision to support the ban posed a dilemma for students on the Undergraduate Life Committee (ULC), said current USG president Leslie-Bernard Joseph '06. "I'm sure it was an incredibly tough job for the ULC to implement a policy that limits the individual rights of students," he said.

Joseph said he has asked Dickerson to include students in the discussions about the implementation and enforcement of the new policy. "If students' rights are going to be limited, I'd want students—especially smokers—to be involved in the process," he said.

A poll in the early 1990s revealed that the majority of Princeton undergraduates were opposed to a ban on smoking in dormitories, the 'Prince' reported in 1999. But "the world has changed since then," Dickerson said. "Now that New York City restaurants and airlines are both smoke free, it's clear that the general trend is against smoking."

The ULC considered health and quality of life concerns when advising the Office of Campus Life to ban smoking in dorm rooms, said Juan Lessing '05, chair of the committee.

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"As a group, the ULC put a great deal of effort and dedicated itself for quite some time to make sure to consider all aspects of the issue," Lessing said. "I spoke with a large number of groups, organizations and individuals, and the ULC drafted and passed a resolution that we considered to be fair and beneficial to the entire University community."

Dickerson has focused on several health issues since coming to the University in 2000. She created the Alcohol Coalition in 2002 in response to widespread undergraduate binge drinking, and co-chairs the Task Force on Health and Well-Being.