The ASASUD Senate discussed the implementation of an initiative that would prohibit smoking on campus and the adoption of a University-wide constitution at its meeting Friday.
Sophomore Sen. Amanda Cram, of the College of Nursing and Health Innovation, presented the Tobacco Free Campus initiative to the Senate in order for senators to begin gauging the opinions of their constituents.
“As the College of Nursing and Health Innovation, I’m supportive of this,” she said, explaining that it would be in agreement with AZ Healthy People 2020, an initiative supported by her school for health promotion and disease prevention for Arizonans.
Junior Sen. Joe Pettinato, of the College of Public Programs, said his concern with the initiative, which started on the Tempe campus, is students may be put in danger by it.
“Lots of students live in Taylor Place-it’s on campus. If they want to have a cigarette at 2 in the morning, I don’t think that they should have to walk around in downtown Phoenix trying to get off campus,” he said after asking how the Downtown campus would be defined.
Olga Lykhvar, ASASUD director of administration, also presented the Senate with a Universal Constitution drawn up by members of ASASU West.
President Tania Mendes said the Universal Constitution would be beneficial because the ASU campuses would be uniform.
“They will have their own bylaws, but there will be one foundation that will be solid for all campuses,” she said.
However, Mendes also said the Universal Constitution was originally intended to be eased in over a five-year period. She said it was finished earlier than expected, but implementing it so soon could cause confusion next year.
Pettinato said he likes the idea of the Universal Constitution but said he thinks there needs to work done on the current proposal. He said he would like the addition of language that binds campus presidents to represent their senates at Presidents’ Council meetings.
“Fortunately, President Tania has voted with the Senate in the Presidents’ Council on all issues so far, but nothing has bound her to that,” he said. “Those kind of changes … are things we need to look at.”
Following discussion of the Universal Constitution, no senator motioned for its passage.
Contact the reporter at salvador.rodriguez@asu.edu
