Campus Proposal

When it comes to issues on campus, we have a lot; but what campus does not? Our group came up with things such as needing better bus routes for the on-campus shuttles and making scantrons free on campus. However, the one I want to talk about deals with enforcing the twenty-five feet rule. The campus has done surveys on the number of students who think this is a good rule, I think it is somewhere around 80%. What is the point in having it if no one enforces it? According to campus rules, this rule says that you may not smoke within twenty-five feet of a building entrance, but most students do not care to follow this. I propose that our campus place a fine on those who do not follow the twenty-five feet rule. If we have cops walking around and handing out twenty-five dollar fines, then I think more people will obey this rule and those of us who don’t smoke can attempt to avoid it.

Now some of you may ask, “Where will these cops/smoking enforcers come from?” Well, as we mentioned in class, there are a lot of undercover cops on campus, which most of us including me find a waste of money. Not that we do not need cops, but I do not think they all need to be driving around in cars. That brings the problem of spending more money because we need more cars for them; more cars mean more money for gas. If we take some of these cops out and place them on bikes or just walk by foot, it would help save money and benefit our environment. These police could go down Chancellors walk and have easier access than just having to follow the roads. While these cops are walking around, they could hand out smoking tickets. These smoking tickets could help bring in more money so that we could hire more teachers or even allow for teachers to make more copies so students can have more than just copies of tests.

I think that, by imposing a fine on twenty-five feet, it can only help to benefit our campus. Wwe will, in a sense, be gaining more money than we would be spending by saving on cars and gas that campus police waste. If we do not enforce this rule, then what is the point in putting it in place? We have spent money on making posters and t-shirts to support this rule, but nobody is really supporting it. If we wished to take it one step further, we could make designated smoking areas like a lot of places have. This would help make enforcing the rule easier because cops would not need to guess what twenty-five feet is the area would be marked. Designated areas would also allow for non-smokers to not have smoke blown in their face; it is never fun to breathe in smoke from someone who is walking in front of you or riding their bike by. It is forcing me to breathe in their bad habits that I do not wish to endure. In addition, I think theses enforcement ideas would make it harder on smokers to the point that some of them might even quit, which would mean we have a healthier campus. By enforcing this rule and possibly assigning designated areas for smoking on campus, it will benefit not only the students, but also the college’s budget.