“Going tobacco free promotes a healthy environment in which to learn, work and live, for our students, faculty, staff and visitors, and also better prepares our students for the workplace of today,” Hopkins said.
Wright State is in the process of designing programs to help employees and students quit using tobacco. A task force began looking into making the campus tobacco free five years ago.
The university will become the ninth college on the Inter-University Council of Ohio to go tobacco free. There are more than 1,400 tobacco-free campuses across the country, according to Wright State.
“This is a very proud moment in the history of this great university, and I think we will look back on this day and this announcement as the beginning of the change in the culture that will bode well for future generations that come to Wright State,” said Hopkins.
Thursday’s announcement, which was part of an effort by the American Cancer Society’s “Great American Smokeout 2016,” featured Greene County Public Health information officer Laurie Fox and Wright State Wellness Program director Doug Newton, among others.
Sinclair Community College also has announced it will go tobacco free by Jan. 1.
Miami University and Ohio State already are tobacco-free campuses.
The University of Dayton allows smoking in designated areas, but there is a wellness services effort to eventually make the campus tobacco free, according the university’s website.
In 2012, the Ohio Board of Regents, now the Ohio Department of Higher Education, recommended that all Ohio public universities become tobacco free.
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