As you may know, the USM Board of Regents has adopted a policy requiring all USM institutions, including UMBC, to provide a healthy, smoke-free environment for all faculty, staff, students, contractors, and visitors by July 1, 2013. (Click here to read the full USM policy.)
The new USM policy reflects a national movement to provide healthy, smoke-free environments on college campuses. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently launched the Tobacco-Free College Campus Initiative, advocating for smoke-free policies at colleges and universities nationwide. More than 800 colleges in the United States, including Towson University in the USM, are already smoke free.
While the new smoke-free USM policy applies systemwide, each campus has been asked to develop an implementation plan best suited to its particular community. Accordingly, UMBC has created the Smoke-Free Campus Task Force with representatives from UMBC’s shared governance organizations, including students, faculty, and staff members.
The task force will host a number of meetings and public forums for members of the UMBC community to share suggestions and ask questions about the implementation process; a list of those meetings can be found here. You may also send suggestions to smokefree@umbc.edu.
We greatly value your input on implementing the smoke-free USM policy. Please continue to check this page as we move forward in the implementation process. Thank you for your support and assistance.