Campus may be tobacco free, but now smokers congregate at the intersection of Forsyth Boulevard and Wallace Drive. The resulting cloud has exposed some students to more secondhand smoke than before the ban.

Sophomore Kelsey Brod, a Student Union senator for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has been trying to collaborate with Student Health Services (SHS) to find a way to discourage students from congregating on Forsyth but has thus far not been able to make headway.

“I have taken this on as one of my personal projects this year under the University Initiatives Committee,” Brod said. “I e-mailed my constituency [to ask] if it was a concern, and I received the largest response I have ever seen.”

Brod has taken on the issue partly as a result of Assistant to the Chancellor Rob Wild’s suggestion at the first Senate meeting that SU could work with the administration to try to help fix the problem. According to Brod, Wild suggested that students’ voices could possibly persuade the University to do something about the secondhand smoke on Forsyth.

“Wild mentioned that this is something that Student Union could work on with the administration,” Brod said. “He said that Chancellor Wrighton was not pleased about it but did not say that there would be any University action.”

Brod e-mailed SHS director Alan Glass on Sept. 10, explaining her constituents’ concerns and asking if SHS could do anything to prevent smokers from congregating on Forsyth, forwarding an e-mail from one of her constituents as well. Brod received a three-sentence response, in which Glass and Ann Prenatt, the vice chancellor for human resources, thanked Brod for expressing her concerns, but said that SHS could not do anything about Forsyth, since it is not campus property. While Brod was displeased by the short e-mail and lack of suggestions, she acknowledged the difficulty of dealing with the matter.

“I do not know if SHS will be the best outlet to try and work with,” Brod said. “They are completely valid on the point that Forsyth is public property.”

“It is a very difficult situation to deal with. We just have to see what we can do, but hopefully we can work towards a solution,” said sophomore Mamatha Challa, the speaker of the Senate.

In an e-mail to Student Life, Glass and Prenatt wrote that they are open to student input but that all suggestions must be consistent with the ban. There have not been many complaints to SHS yet.

“We have received very little feedback from Washington University community members,” Glass and Prenatt wrote. “The majority of this feedback has been supportive of the tobacco-free policy.”

While the e-mail that Brod’s constituent sent suggested adding designated areas on campus, Brod understands that that will not happen, now that the ban has been implemented.

“Before the tobacco ban was implemented, students wanted designated areas on campus, but the University decided that they did not want to do that,” Brod said. “Right now that’s out of the question, but we did consider that before the ban was implemented.”

One alternative that Brod suggested was the removal of the outdoor ashtrays from Forsyth, which she believes encourages students to gather on Forsyth, or to move them to lower-trafficked areas of the campus perimeter to encourage smokers to move to other parts of the campus perimeter. Glass and Prenatt, however, do not think that moving the ashtrays would make a difference.

“Those who smoke are likely to gravitate to the most convenient public spot whether an ashtray is available or not,” Glass and Prenatt wrote. “We are grateful that these ashtrays are being used rather than trash being left on the sidewalks.”

Now that the ban has been fully implemented for nearly three months, Challa hopes that the negative effects on students can be minimized.

“This is a problem regardless of whether or not you agree with the tobacco ban,” Challa said. “Now that the ban has been implemented, we need to make sure that it doesn’t negatively affect students.”