After analyzing the results of the Smoke-Free Campus Survey sent to students, faculty and staff during the Spring semester, KSU has decided not to make any major changes to its current smoking policy.
The survey was compiled, sent out and analyzed by the A.L. Burruss Institute of Public Service and Research, an institute within KSU that conducts telephone and Internet surveys for the university and other non-profit organizations throughout Georgia.
The principal investigator of the survey was Randy Hinds, Kennesaw State’s vice president for operations. Hinds came to the Burruss Institute and asked them if they would research the KSU community’s opinions about the current campus smoking policy.
More than 26,000 surveys were sent to the e-mail addresses of KSU students, faculty and staff.
Hinds said in an email that the results of the smoking survey proved to be inconclusive and that KSU would “continue with the current arrangement.”
According to data provided by Hinds, of the 5,387 people who completed the survey, 13.2 percent of respondents identified themselves as smokers while 86.8 percent said they did not smoke. Ten percent of respondents did not answer that particular question.
The results show that more than two-thirds of all survey respondents believe “the university’s current smoking policies provide a good balance between the rights of all individuals,” and 31 percent of those who took the survey said they regularly encounter secondhand smoke on campus.
“In an effort to increase the comfort of our campus community, there are plans to relocate some of the more problematic smoking areas further away from building entrances,” Hinds said.
Nicholas Boyd, a sophomore majoring in Information Systems, said he does not mind KSU’s current smoking policy but thinks the smoking areas could be moved farther away from the buildings.
“I think they can move the smoking areas away from the walkways a little,” Boyd said. “They are a little too close. I think if they moved [them] away, people would have less of a problem.”
Boyd, who took the survey last semester, said it would be very nice if they offered smokers a covered place to smoke.
“Some people smoke under the awning but there are always cops around, especially if it rains, so I’m not going to take that chance,” he said.
