University Times

Expansion of Pitt’s ban on indoor smoking to 15 feet outside main building entrances took another step toward becoming official policy this week.

Faculty Assembly Tuesday voted without dissent to endorse the draft of an expanded smoking policy that was developed over the summer by Pitt administrators at the request of the University Senate benefits and welfare committee. The policy draft now goes to Senate Council for consideration.

“At the [June] Senate Council meeting, Chancellor [Mark] Nordenberg did express his commitment to making progress on this policy and to have a policy drafted over the summer. I’m very pleased to say that the administration did do this,” said Patricia Weiss, chair of benefits and welfare, who introduced the resolution supporting the draft policy.

(See June 14 University Times.)

Smoking has been prohibited inside all University-owned and leased properties as well as in Pitt vehicles since 1991 (Policy 04-05-03). Under the proposed policy, that ban would be expanded to include a 15-foot radius from building entrances and heating/air conditioning intake vents.

The proposed policy also includes a procedure for units to request designated outdoor smoking areas within their space of operation, to accommodate smokers who are displaced by the new prohibitions surrounding entrances and HVAC vents.

The new ban would not include emergency exit doors or service entrances. (Loading docks that are under building cover would be considered as part of the inside of a building, so smoking would be prohibited.)

Primary entrances are defined in the proposed policy as the common public access points to each building; therefore, buildings such as the Cathedral of Learning would have multiple smoke-free entrance points, although those still need to be specified for buildings across campus, according to Weiss.

Requests for designated smoking areas would have to be approved by the director of Environmental Health and Safety. Only areas that are sufficiently separated from non-smoking areas, where the ventilation is adequate to prevent air contamination of non-smoking areas as evidenced by a discernible odor, would be considered.

If a request is approved, expenses associated with creating the designated smoking area, such as signage and other construction-related costs, would fall to the requesting unit, the policy states. Where multiple units or departments share common space, a consensus would have to be reached prior to a request.

Facilities Management would be responsible to design approved smoking areas. That’s to ensure that signage, for example, complies with University specifications, and applicable city and county ordinances.

According to the draft policy, “All University faculty and supervisory staff are responsible for the enforcement of the University smoking policy within their respective areas of responsibility.”

Weiss acknowledged that the policy would not please everyone. “But it is a cautious policy,” she said. “Some members of our committee wanted to ban smoking entirely, and some defended the rights of smokers. This is more realistic than idealistic. We’re really working toward changing a culture here as we move as a community to a more healthy environment, and that takes time.”

Faculty Assembly’s resolution endorsing the policy draft included a few caveats.

“Our committee did have some concerns about the absence of enforcement provisions. There are no fines or other immediate consequences for smoking [in a prohibited area],” Weiss noted, adding that there is only a vague reference to “taking appropriate personnel action, as necessary, to enforce this policy.”

“In the absence of such provisions, we’re particularly concerned that the University community be given [explanatory] information and that the progress be monitored to identify problems,” Weiss said.

Faculty Assembly then called for three measures as conditions of their endorsement of the draft policy:

• That Facilities Management disseminate to the University community a list of designated primary entrances to campus buildings.

• That a semi-annual report be made to the benefits and welfare committee on implementation of the smoking policy, including how many designated smoking areas are established and where they are; how many violations are reported, and how many complaints are registered, including both complaints about smokers and complaints from smokers.

• That Pitt’s administration act to ensure collaboration among the benefits and welfare committee, Environmental Health and Safety, Facilities Management and staff and student organizations to enhance the policy over the next several years.

The policy draft is expected to be discussed at the Sept. 17 Senate Council meeting. Under Pitt’s shared governance guidelines, Senate Council must approve the policy before it takes effect.

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In other developments:

• Assembly members agreed that the Senate computer usage committee should review the implications of a new policy banning the use of departmental servers for University-related email. Users now must use centralized Pitt servers, which can be slower and have less memory, Assembly member Paul Munro maintained.

• Assembly asked the Senate educational policies committee to review and report on a new process established by the provost for faculty earning royalties on copyrighted material that they assign to their classes, which is against Pitt’s academic integrity policy.

In August, the Provost’s office issued a memo specifying that faculty, working with their publishers, have University bookstores and/or those vendors handling University-organized purchasing arrangements sell the material to students at a ‘discount,’ waiving the royalty charge so that there is no tax consequence.

The policy takes effect this spring term.

The complete text of the provost’s Aug. 15 memo is available online at http://www.provost.pitt.edu/memo/provost-memos.html.

• Senate President John Baker recommended to the provost that Stephen Wisniewski, associate professor in the Graduate School of Public Health, be re-appointed to a three-year term on the University Planning and Budgeting Committee.

—Peter Hart