No more tobacco at Bemidji State

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Not here

Bemidji State University is now tobacco-free, The Bemidji Pioneer reports.

BSU President Richard Hanson approved the ban this week after a campus survey found 93 percent of those polled considered second-hand smoke a health hazard and 77 percent said they were exposed to second-hand smoke at the university.

BSUSA Student Senate Co-President Ashley Tenney told the paper:

“You can’t please everyone, but I think most people are for it. The student senate brought it forward a year ago and it was put into place one year later. It was a really quick turnaround.”

Read the full story here.

(By the way, St. Cloud State students have approved a plan that would ban tobacco from their campus by August 2012. Read the St. Cloud Times report here.)

About the blogger

Alex Friedrich

afriedrich@mpr.org

Alex Friedrich reports on higher education issues for MPR News. Among the stories he has covered: the fall of the Berlin Wall, aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, 2003 Moscow suicide bombing and 2004 presidential elections in the Republic of Georgia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and a master’s in European political economy from the London School of Economics.