Smoking bans on campuses get buzz

First, there was the news this month that Bemidji State University had gone tobacco-free.

Soon afterward, a student vote put St. Cloud State University a step away from doing the same.

Then on Sunday, Winona State University showed up in the New York Times on a short list of campuses certified nationally as smoke-free.

Campus-wide smoking bans at Minnesota's colleges are having a moment.

But that moment falls within a years-long movement.

Hundreds of colleges and universities across the country have banned tobacco on campus -- indoors and out.

A national list of such policies notes 17 campuses in Minnesota. The newly converted Bemidji State makes that 18.

So, a dozen days into the ban, how's it working?

She laughed. "We're still in the first stage, and not really enforcing it yet. But I think I've seen a decrease at least in the number of people smoking around the main classroom building."

Winona State, which went smoke-free in 2009, made the news because it was one of just three campuses nationally certified by the health-education organization Bacchus Network. After a yearlong process, it earned a "silver" standing.

Karen Johnson, dean of students, called it "a formal recognition on a national level that we're doing the right things."

The majority of students, faculty and staff at St. Cloud State support banning smoking campus-wide, recent nonbinding votes show. Earlier this month, 63 percent of students who voted supported the proposed policy. Last week, 75 percent of faculty and staff did.

Within weeks, president Earl Potter will make the final call. Campus No. 19?