A continuing issue at Bakersfield College is smoking on campus with the Student Government Association and the Kern County Public Health Department working together to get students point of view.
The SGA is still analyzing the results from the student surveys at this point, but the last information that had been released was that there are not going to be any changes happening this semester. The changes mentioned would be for a completely smoke-free campus, or designated smoking areas will be assigned.
SGA officer Shawn Newsom stated that there were at least 4,000 students’ surveys about three weeks ago and the surveys are still being taken as of now.
“Based on the possible impact of these surveys, we would like to obtain as much student feedback as possible,” Newsom stated.
Newsom and the rest of the SGA committee have sent out e-mails on April 17 to all staff and faculty, requesting that they participate in the smoking survey as well.
Nsele M. Nsuangani, project director-Public Health Tobacco Program, spoke on behalf of the department of Public Health about their ties to SGA about smoking on campus.
“The Public Health Department is not directly involved in the current smoking survey. The Public Health Department and the Tobacco Free Coalition of Kern County conducted a survey back between May 2005 and September 2005,” Nsuangani said.
Nsuangani stated that the decision to ban smoking will be left up to the SGA, but he has helped them come up with the idea of conducting the survey to get the mandate they would need to come up with a proposal.
The proposal will be to protect non-smokers against the danger of second-hand smoke and to accommodate smokers who have difficulty quitting smoking.
Nsuangani said, “Originally, the Public Health Tobacco Education Program and the Tobacco Free Coalition of Kern County introduced the proposal to the Bakersfield College Administration Council on September 20, 2004. The group was then referred to the SGA.”
The SGA had changed its members around the time the Tobacco Free Coalition of Kern County and the SGA had been collaborating and the grant in which they were working under closed.
The issue of smoking at BC’s campus was reopened when the current SGA president and the SGA Smoking Committee Chair, Newsom, contacted him last November. Newsom wanted Nsuangani to re-launch the Smoke Free Campus Policy Project.