According to the results of a recent campus-wide tobacco usage survey, many of Georgia Southern University’s students, faculty and staff are against smoking on campus.

“There were 1,680 positive toned comments, there were 2,669 negative toned comments, and there were 364 uncertain comments,” Minc said, “59.3 percent of respondents left a comment, which is really good.”

The survey was conducted last semester and included questions that asked students how they felt about smoking on campus.

“The survey was about a 5-minute survey with about 10 questions that were multiple-choice answer and then we did a likers scale assessment to gauge attitudes towards different things related to tobacco use,” America Minc, Chair of the Tobacco Free Campus Initiative, a sub branch of the Staff Council, said.

There was a fairly high response rate to the survey, which rendered it a success.

“Usually the Office of Strategically Analysis says that a good response rate would be about 20-25 percent, they said I’d be lucky to get that. And I got well over 36 percent,” Minc said, “The total number of respondents was 7,945, 83 percent of respondents were students and only 17 percent were faculty and staff.”

As previously stated last semester, a suggestion was to be made to Dr. Keel and the President’s Cabinet after reviewing the survey results in the hopes of putting action towards this issue.

“The plan from here would be to, we’re going to present the survey findings to the Student Government Association at the end of this month then we will present the findings to the Faculty Senate and hopefully at the end of each of those meetings each of those groups will decide whether they will want to add a resolution of support or something like that to then turn this in to Dr. Keel and the Presidents Cabinet for them to make a final decision,” Minc said.

Students on campus validate the results of the survey by voicing their opinions on the matter.

“I’m probably against (smoking on campus) because there might be an issue to people who have health problems such as asthma, so I think (smokers) should be considerate, you know, where they smoke at,” Christal Driver, freshman chemistry major, said.

“People that don’t smoke need to understand that you can walk away, and smokers also need to be mindful of others; it goes both ways,” Stephen Pelosi, freshmen political science major, said.

Other students agree that tobacco usage on campus is acceptable through certain circumstances.

“I think people should have the choice to smoke or not smoke but it would be better to have specific zones,” Matt Stroud, sophomore pre- dental major, said.

“I mean I think it’s fine, I know a lot of people down here smoke,” Max Bagley, freshman geology major, said, “I think they’re too harsh about smoking at the dorms.”

More about the survey and a thank you to all students, faculty and staff will be announced at a later date along with the winners of the raffle drawing held by the Staff Council, Minc said.

“The University Store was generous enough to donate an iPod shuffle that a student will win, and then we are giving a faculty or staff member a one year free RAC membership,” Minc said, “That was just a little incentive to one, say thank you for completing this survey, but two, maybe to get them to take the survey.”

The survey information reveals that change would be accepted, Minc said.

“I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey whether it was online or in paper form,” Minc said, “I’m just incredibly thankful for the response rate that we got.”