Cigarette smokers at CSULB might soon be holding onto their butts.
During Friday’s Convocation speech at the Carpenter Center, California State University, Long Beach President Jane Conoley announced plans to eliminate smoking on campus by August 2016.
As part of the plan to ban smoke and tobacco, Conoley also announced a new campaign: Breathe. This project will try to educate smokers about the health risks associated with tobacco.
The campaign will also include training for people to manage their lifestyle without smoking.
“Part of smoking really is the environment,” Conoley said. “You know, ‘whenever I have a cup of coffee I do this…’ [We’ll] look at those kind of triggering environments and come up with a more positive behavior.”
Another part of the Breathe campaign includes the removal of the ashtrays from around campus and putting up signs encouraging people to quit, Conoley said.
Though smoking will be banned on campus next year, Conoley said that a grace period of one to three years will be given before students begin getting citations for breaking the ban.
The president is still finalizing the details of the Breathe campaign; CSULB’s executive director of news Michael Uhlenkamp said it will be released soon.
The move to a smoke-free campus began last year with the formation of a smoking task force that researched the practices of other campuses that have banned smoking.
The announcement of Breathe was met with loud applause during the president’s speech. But it was not the only remark that got the crowd excited.
Perhaps the biggest applause came from a remark Praveen Soni, chair of the Academic Senate, made about the parking challenges on campus.
The other topic that nearly every speaker addressed was the ongoing salary negotiations between the California State University system and the California Faculty Association.
“Our university has the challenge of mending the fractured faculty morale, and rewarding the daily professionalism and dedication of the great faculty and staff of the institution by providing respectable salary increase for all faculty and staff,” Soni said. “As well as substantially reducing or eliminating the gross inequities that exist in the salaries in all ranks, in all colleges.”
Conoley said during her speech that although there have been improvements in the state budget for the university, CSULB is still $65 million below 2007 state funding levels.
“I have asked the vice presidents to work with leadership in each of their divisions to develop strategies for addressing faculty and staff compensation challenges,” Conoley said. “While working hard to match the market in total compensation for every one of our employees and meeting our collective bargaining obligations.”
She added that she believes the current funding model for rewarding the service of the faculty is not sustainable.
The focus for everyone was on the future of CSULB. Interim provost David Dowell spoke about a number of long-term goals for the university including: creation of a new student center, expanding digital instruction for students, a greater focus on graduate programs including a new graduate center and greater expansion of tenure-track hiring.
“We are poised to continue our evolution as an urban land grant university,” Conoley said. “One that parlays local action into global recognition, creates budget models that buffer against volatile state budgets and political swings, values student learning and creates and evaluates innovative [methods] to ensure it and takes responsibility for the economic development of its region. Tall order.”