Student Union

STUDENT BODY PRESIDENT JEFF NELSON:

Good afternoon—

Last week, the University announced that our campus will go tobacco free by July 2010. In light of this announcement, many students have posted comments on the Student Union website creating a vigorous debate around the merits of enacting a campus wide smoking ban. I encourage students to keep this discussion going, but today I do not want to talk about the smoking ban itself. Instead, I want to talk about the process by which the smoking ban decision was made

In the last couple of days, we have learned that this decision was made with very little student input. Now, I say this knowing the majority of students on our campus do not smoke tobacco and many probably agree with the University’s decision. Nevertheless, decisions that are made without student input undermine the idea that students are truly stakeholders at the University. 

Now, with all that said, we know that there are some decisions that the University must make that do not require student input. Things like faculty compensation or the tenure process are areas where students may have opinions, but will not be directly affected by the policies that are decided upon.

But, when decisions are made regarding issues that directly affect students, the University has a responsibility to involve students and their elected representatives in the process by which these decisions are made.

I have been working with the Speaker of the Senate, Chase Sackett, and rest of the leadership of Senate to address this issue. In particular, we are working to identify concrete steps to ensure that the University reaffirms its commitment to including students and their elected representatives when making decisions.

At this week’s Senate meeting, we will discuss the state of the Sustainability Strategic Plan, the Smoking Ban and the role of students in decision making. I encourage you to come to the meeting and voice your opinions.

Thank you.

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Attachment: 

19 April 09 Student Involvement in Decision Making.pdf