Orange Coast College announces it will become a smoke-free campus starting 2020

Classes are back in session virtually this week for Orange Coast College and with them come a litany of changes — including that the campus intends to become smoke- and tobacco-free, following approval by the Coast Community College District Board of Trustees.

The Costa Mesa campus announced Tuesday that, starting this fall, smoking and tobacco-use will be prohibited on all Orange Coast College property, but enforcement will be educational with an emphasis on awareness and cessation resources. The ban also includes electronic smoking devices, hookahs and marijuana.

“We want to support our smokers who want to quit smoking. We don’t want to stigmatize smokers. We just want a healthy environment,” said Anna Hanlon, a public health and kinesiology professor that teamed up with students to develop the policy.

“We have children on campus. We have pregnant women on campus. We have people with asthma on campus,” Hanlon said. “It’s important for us to create a healthy campus so that everyone can learn and meet their educational goals.”

Hanlon said students led the charge to transition the campus when they saw that OCC received n “F” on the California Youth Advocacy Network California College & University Smoke/Tobacco-Free Policy Report Card in 2018.

The report addresses tobacco-use policy trends on campuses throughout the state and aims to encourage campus administrators to adopt and implement policies.

Work to transition the campus to a smoke-free one began in the fall of 2018 and included a campuswide survey. A $20,000 grant from the Truth Initiative, a nonprofit tobacco control organization, was allocated toward programming, sopporting campus efforts and Quit Kits, designed to aid in cessation.

The Associated Students of Orange Coast College passed a resolution in 2018 to urge the college to adopt a policy for a smoke- and tobacco-free campus. It was later presented to the Academic Senate, which represents OCC’s faculty, and the Classified Senate, which represents OCC’s staff.

Both governing bodies accepted the recommendation with the caveat that an implementation task force be formed to establish what the policy change would mean.

The task force was composed of 13 people, including students, faculty and staff, and studied what neighboring campuses had done to draft their policies. The task force was formed in spring last year and continued through the spring of 2020.

The next steps include educating new students and providing assistance to students and employees who are interested in quitting smoking, such as through the student health center, which has hired a smoking cessation specialist to oversee efforts.

“We are updating onboarding information for our incoming freshmen, new student housing occupants and new employees,” Hanlon said. “We are also getting the word out to our campus with a public-facing web page and educational programs that are being created to provide information on the new policy and cessation support available to smokers who want to quit.”

The campus received final approval from the Coast Community College District on June 17.

“I think it’s wonderful that this was an effort led by our students,” OCC President Angelica Suarez said. “We look forward to continuing to work with our students and our staff to implement a smoking cessation education program this fall.”

Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber.