From noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, representatives from Southeast’s Student Government Association (SGA) reserved tables in dining areas across campus and invited students to share their opinions with them regarding the topic of converting to a tobacco-free campus. The representatives said they hope to get an idea of how students would feel about such a change in light of current campus tobacco use policy.

Student Government President Peyton Mogley said the topic recently was brought up in a meeting of the university’s Administrative Council, where presenters suggested the university could benefit from transitioning to a tobacco-free campus.

“They had a list of several different universities across the state of Missouri that had chosen to go either smoke-free or tobacco-free, when they decided to go smoke-free or tobacco-free, and the different processes of how they went about doing that,” Mogley said. “And from there it kind of sparked a discussion with members of Administrative Council and we were asked by Dr. Vargas to go ahead and do what we can to solicit feedback from students on the issue.”

Dylan Kennedy, vice president of SGA, said the input of the student body is important to him and other representatives.

“We were like, 'Well, we want to get a feeling of what students have [to say] about this,' and bring it back to Administrative Council in October to say, 'Students aren't really going this way, or they're leaning whichever way.’”

The representatives were located at the south dining room at the University Center, St. Vincent’s Commons at the River Campus and Towers Cafe. Students could verbally express their opinions to SGA representatives or write their thoughts down for later consideration by the organization.

“I think a majority of people that were here at St. Vincent's ended up choosing to express their opinions and their input via the piece of paper,” Mogley said. “So they didn't really take a verbal approach, they kind of just wanted to silently [say], 'OK, I'll internalize what's going on, how I feel about it, and write it down.'”

Current university policy states smoking is not allowed on campus property except in designated areas. Smokeless tobacco use is not allowed in any university building except for residential buildings. According to a university map, there currently are 23 designated smoking areas across campus.

The representatives are also asking that students take an anonymous online survey formulated to gauge students’ opinions on the issue of tobacco use on campus, as well as students’ personal tobacco use. This survey opened Wednesday afternoon and will remain open until late Friday night.

To take the survey, here.