Tufts' campus in downtown Boston will on April 16 begin implementing its new initiative to become tobacco-free by prohibiting smoking in the vicinity of the building.
The Tobacco-Free Tufts Boston Initiative is the university's response to the Boston Public Health Commission's citywide plan to make medical school campuses in Boston tobacco-free, according to Vice President of Human Resources Kathe Cronin.
"After much consideration of the pros and cons, the Boston campus school administrators along with central university administrators decided to go tobacco free," Cronin told the Daily in an email.
According to Cronin, the policy will ban smoking at all building entrances and in the garage and other university- and medical center-owned outdoor space, in addition to the already smoke-free university buildings.
Tufts' Boston campus is joining the Tufts Medical Center, the Floating Hospital for Children and numerous other healthcare organizations that are implementing tobacco-free programs.
"We invited Tufts University to join us and the university made its own considered decision to make Tufts Boston campus tobacco-free," Tufts Medical Center Internal Communications Manager Linda Shelton told the Daily in an email.
"We are one of 10 hospitals in Boston who pledged to go tobacco-free on our campuses this year as part of an initiative with the Boston Public Health Commission and Massachusetts Hospital Association," Shelton said.
The three goals of the initiative are to improve the health of the community, to create a culture of support for employees who would like to stop using tobacco products and to reduce involuntary exposure to secondhand smoke, according to a message to all Boston campus faculty and staff from Cronin and Director of Human Resources at Boston and Grafton Sabrina Williams.
"We welcomed the opportunity to support our employees' and students' health by further minimizing the effects of second hand smoke and supporting employees and students who do smoke but would like to quit," Cronin said.
Shelton added that this policy of becoming smoke-free was in line with the goals of most medical institutions.
"As a health care organization, it's the right thing to do to help protect the health and safety of our patients, visitors and employees," Shelton said.
Cronin noted that smoking and non-smoking administrators, staff and students from all the Boston schools have come together to form an ad hoc advisory group that will oversee and guide the implementation of the new policy.
"The group strongly endorses a supportive and straightforward approach to implementing this enhanced policy," Cronin said.
"For instance, multiple smoking cessation ‘lunch and learns' will be held on campus and [will be] open to all faculty, staff and students who are interested in quitting smoking."
The message sent out to the community also included information about other resources available to those trying to quit smoking, including the Employee Assistance Program and The Massachusetts Smokers' Helpline.
The Boston Public Health Commission is also offering Boston residents free nicotine patches to help them quit smoking for the first time.
Cronin emphasized that members of the community who smoke are expected to obey the new smoke-free signage and policy on campus, regardless of whether they personally choose to quit.
She added that the administration could potentially consider making the tobacco-free initiative a university-wide project should the interest arise. Still, Cronin noted the differences in the layout of the other Tufts campuses.
"Given that the Medford/Somerville and Grafton campuses are quite different from the Boston campus, with much more open space, going tobacco-free on those campuses would present unique challenges," she said.
The reaction to this latest policy decision has been generally well-received on the Boston campus, according to Cronin.
