Well, well, well! This may come as a surprise to many of you, but this camper is pretty damn happy with NIU. Why? Well my student loan came in Friday. Sure, it’s the end of October. Sure, I lose $25 for not paying my tuition on time. No big deal. What’s $25 to a college student? But what I’m really happy about is the smoking policy NIU started this summer. This thing almost appears to be having a positive effect!

It seems that sometime last year someone suggested NIU ban smoking in public places. It sounded like a good idea, so we got one of our many commitees to look into it. They talked to other universities and did a bunch of surveys to see what would be in the best interest of the students and staff here. They figured out that most of us wanted smoking banned from public places, with maybe some designated smoking areas.

And here we have a wonderful miracle. The policy was not pushed around for three years. It was implemented quickly. And it looks to be having a very positive effect on campus.

And there’s more! The university has sponsored a clinic to help staff members quit smoking. So far 50 staff members have taken part in this clinic, and it seems as if it has been well worth the investment. Although they haven’t done a follow up survey yet, there are actually people who have quit smoking because of this program.

The school pays $25 per person for a seven session course to help staff members quit smoking. (Now I know where my bursar fines go every semester. But I’m not complaining.) I believe that in the long-run the university will save a lot more than they spend on this program. There are tons of studies which show that non-smokers miss fewer days than people that smoke. Less absenteeism saves the school money. Saving money would be a nice change. I think that if even a few of the people who go through it quit, it will be one of the better investments made in recent years.

Surprisingly, there have been only two areas of complaint since the program started. One had to do with students in one building tearing down the designated smoking area signs and giving smokers a hard time. This problem was solved by installing permanent signs so there will be no confusion. The second complaint involved a staff lounge which is now a designated smoking area but wasn’t prior to the installation of a fan on Thursday. So this problem also should be resolved now.

But all is not perfect. Where are the signs which indicate where the designated smoking areas are? With the exception of one building on campus there is no way of telling where the smoking areas really are.

There are signs everywhere saying no smoking except in designated areas, but there are very few designated area signs. So people assume that if they see an ashcan they must be in a designated area. Not so. Take for example the light court in Wirtz Hall. There are nine ashcans there, right in the middle of the court. Nine cans in an area that is NOT a designated smoking area. And there isn’t a sign which expressly forbids smoking.

It might help to remove the ashcans from no smoking areas. Then what the university needs to do is get some permanent signs which indicate whether an area is designated for smoking or not. Every area on campus should have a sign which makes it clear whether or not smoking is allowed. There were such signs but they were made of paper and taped in place and seem to have disappeared.

I went around to some of these areas and asked a couple of people if they were aware that they were in no smoking areas. Either they didn’t know, or they were disregarding the fact because there were ashcans and there weren’t any signs.

But on the whole, the non-smokers I talked to love it, and most of the smokers seem accepting of it as long as they are in close proximity to a smoking area. Isn’t this swell. This is the first step towards peace on earth. I can feel it.