Historically Black University in Tobacco Country Gets Tougher on Smokers

Many colleges and universities have banned cigarette smoking in dormitories and academic buildings. But North Carolina Central University, located in the heart of tobacco country in Durham, North Carolina, has gone even farther.

Smoking had already been banned in all campus buildings and in university-owned vehicles. As a result, smokers tended to congregate just outside building entrances, subjecting people who were entering or leaving the building to large levels of secondhand smoke. But now a resolution, passed unanimously by the board of trustees, bans smoking within 25 feet of the entrance to any building on campus. The campus will set up designated smoking areas far from building entrances where smokers will still be able to light up.

Copyright © 2007. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.