Campus Smoking Ban Fails Its Purpose

Originally published in the Valparaiso University student newspaper, The Torch, on April 16, 2010.

There is no penalty for smoking penalty cigarettes on campus. Though the university administration has “banned” tobacco from campus, the lack of enforcement has rendered the policy shallow and unflattering to the university’s integrity. The administration should repeal the smoking ban on campus and replace it with comprehensive addiction-fighting programs.

Imagine this scenario: An Ambassador in Admissions guides a tour around campus, showing prospective students and parents the university’s wonderful infrastructure. Walking through the Valparaiso University Center for the Arts, the guide strolls along the asphalt path backwards, talking at length about our academic accolades. Suddenly, dense cloud of burning cigarettes engulfs the tour group; two students stand smoking near the doorway. Mother coughs violently.

“I thought this was a tobacco-free campus,” she says, recovering from the smoke’s violent invasion into her lungs.

“It's supposed to be,” the AIA says.

The ban on smoking has failed its purpose; we have not achieved a smoke-free campus. Simply declaring cigarette smoking a prohibited activity is about as effective as telling an open wound to stop bleeding.

We need more.

Instead of a ban, the university should engage in more proactive measures to help students quit. The Health Center could sponsor students to group together and kick the habit together. The cafe could sell nicotine patches and other tools for combating the cigarette crave. If the university could foster an environment where students felt encouraged to quit smoking, a ban would be unnecessary.

Even Residence Life policies aren’t hospitable to students trying to quit. They’ve banned electronic cigarettes from the residence halls. These mechanisms satisfy the nicotine craving while only emitting water vapor. There is no smoke involved, and yet they’ve been barred. Instead of disallowing a harmless substitution for a cigarette, maybe Residence Life should do more to address the inherent issues facing students who smoke. Where are the support groups? Where are the information sessions? Where is anything other than an ineffective “no smoking” sign?

In the place of positive results, our current smoking policy has stigmatized smokers as a separate class of students. Ostracizing people for poor health habits achieves nothing. Have no doubt, vitriolic attitudes toward smokers not only exist, but have manifested in direct confrontations. Walking toward the entrance of Brandt Hall, I witnessed a student enduring harassment while standing outside near the benches. From one of the windows, someone felt it necessary to shout venomous expletives down at this student for smoking.

This is not the atmosphere the university wishes to cultivate.

Breaking addiction requires education, support and will power; two-thirds of this formula is currently missing on campus. Students who wish to quit smoking have the will power, now they need the university to fulfill its duty to educate and support its students – all students.

Currently, the ban is a hollow rule that yields no positive effects and numerous negative ones. It’s a lazy policy and students - both smokers and non-smokers - deserve more.

Liberal Farts Education

Originally published in the Valparaiso University student newspaper, The Torch, on April 9, 2010.

Last Wednesday, I sat in Grinders Cafe attempting to explain deconstructionist literary theory to a friend of mine. Graciously, she listened. Clearly excited about the topic, I rambled on for quite some time. Whenever I talk about my major (English), most people usually ask, “What are you planning to do with that major?” It’s so common I expect it nowadays.

My friend, in step with her predecessors, followed up with that same stale, albeit warranted question. And I answered her with my usual reply - that I plan to

write one day for some publication. Learning to read properly, I told her in more or less words, is essential to learning to writer properly. Fumbling my words, I managed to somehow articulate a vague argument about the importance of a liberal arts education. I told her of all my plans, contingent on so many unforeseeable variables.

In my experience, most people tune out and wonder why I chose such a useless major.

They ask themselves, “What is the practical application of a English major?”

As it turns out, my friend is not one of those people; she understands. She’s a double major in music and psychology. Confessedly, she’s not really sure about how any of her studies will manifest in employment. Admirably, she’s courageous enough to pursue music academically; if there is a major stigmatized for its practicality, it’s music and art.

Applying a collegiate education to the work world is no new struggle, but recently this very problem reached a boiling point. Last Monday, Nancy Cook of Newsweek wrote, “(T)here's no denying that the fight between the cerebral B.A. vs. the practical B.S. is heating up. For now, practicality is the frontrunner, especially as the recession continues to hack into the budgets of both students and the schools they attend.”

The statistics she reports are astonishing. A 2009 survey showed that nearly 56 percent of incoming freshmen said it was “very important” to find a college whose students found solid, reliable employment. Colleges are feeling the pressure to cut back on programs such as philosophy and performing arts. Newsweek reports that Centenary College in Louisiana felt pressured to remove 44 of its majors - all liberal arts majors.

But thinking that practicality is the future of education is manifestly wrong. As graduate programs increase enrollment, the conventional wisdom that majoring in business increases your chance of getting into an MBA program is not as accurate as one might think. Only one-fifth of students accepted into the Yale School of Management were business majors, equivalent to the number of those who majored in the humanities. The admissions counselor responsible for that class, Bruce DelMonico said, “It's not a question of, ‘Do you have the particular classes,’ but it’s “Do you have the mindset, the temperament, the intellectual horsepower to succeed?’”

To be fair, this argument shouldn’t be misunderstood as a case for more philosophy and literature classes. The pendulum swings both ways. Every music major should understand the science behind why their instruments make certain sounds. Each member of each of our choirs should understand the anatomy of the throat and voice. A painter must know how the chemicals in various pigments and mediums affect colors and text.

For a true liberal arts education to occur, the pedagogical binaries of science versus art, math versus poetry and so on, must cease to exist. In truth, advanced physics requires creativity, ethical philosophy requires the scientific method, and musical notation requires numerical comprehension.

Fortunately for this university, President Heckler seems to have an understanding of this concept. The second draft of the Strategic Plan encourages “rigorous interdisciplinary innovation” and emphasizes the need for “experiential” learning.

The recent draft of the Strategic Plan demonstrates an understanding that employers and graduate schools are looking for skills and not necessarily content. While it may not be crucial for an engineer to know the relevant metaphors in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” it is vital that they know to read analytically. It may not be essential for a business major to know the manner in which various ions bond together, but it is important that they know how to form and test a hypothesis.

There is no easy way to predict how one’s major will manifest in employment. Even those with very specific and narrow paths ahead, jobs in this tumultuous market are hard to come by. For now, it is in every student’s interest to squeeze every ounce of experience and knowledge out of this university. After all, it surely isn’t cheap.

Social Justice and Religious Identity

Originally published in the Valparaiso University student newspaper, The Torch, on April 1, 2010.

Social justice made its appearance on cable news last week. Fox News commentator Glenn Beck ignited a fierce debate on his radio show when he advised listeners to leave their churches if they found the words “social justice or economic justice” on the church’s Web site. For full context, Mr. Beck was warning his audience of these phrases allegedly being used as code words to advance Marxist propaganda.

Though I’d rather not drag myself into debates on Mr. Beck’s paranoia, his comments provoke us to think about how closely we integrate social justice into our lives as students of a faith-based university. Social justice (for the sake of this argument, we’ll use its Marxism-free definition) plays a defining role in the character of Valparaiso University and the moral fiber of its students.

In the recently updated second draft of the Strategic Plan, University President Mark Heckler strove to define more closely the Lutheran identity for the university. One the most impressive and admirable qualities of this institution is the level at which students are involved in charitable and philanthropic endeavors - evidenced in the actions of the Social Action Leadership Team. Just recently, the campus wide project “Valpo Has a Heart for Haiti” project met its $15,000 goal.

But when I interviewed University Pastor James Wetzstein, the mentor for the Social Action Leadership Team, he wanted to make sure an important distinction is made.

“In SALT we distinguish between social justice and charity... Charity is understood as one-time gifts in the occasion of crisis; fundraising for meals and shelter for earthquake-devastated Haiti is charity. Social justice is asking larger questions like, ‘How come when an earthquake happens in Haiti hundreds of thousands of people die, but when even stronger earthquake happens in Chile, [only] hundreds of people die? What’s going on? What’s the difference in those situations?’”

Wetzstein’s distinction is important. The world’s response to the devastation in Haiti far exceeds any other disaster fundraising in history, in dollars and speed. Ultimately, this response is only an act of charity, albeit a very important one. The real troubles that face Haiti demand more than just disaster treatment. Social justice requires us to examine the systemic problems that infect our world - issues that aren’t confined to catastrophe. According to Wetzstein, we can’t just move “from the next new thing to the next new thing, because then it all becomes a media event where it’s about finding what kind of crisis can create the most buzz.” It becomes a question of, “Do the kids in Darfur look more desperate than the kids in Haiti?”

The religious arguments for our commitment to social justice transcend any one faith or dogma. Though the mission of social justice is an integral part of the Lutheran theology, morality and the quest for justice is widespread amongst all faiths. The evidence is in the multi-cultural participation for SALT initiatives. “We’ve had Muslims hang out at SALT and get involved in the World Relief Campaign,” Wetzstein said. “The thing that we had in common was not faith or theological background; the thing we had in common was what was happening to impoverished kids on the streets of Jakarta.”

Finding and fixing social injustices in the world is a calling for human beings at large, which is why the recent revisions in the Strategic Plan are crucial to how social justice plays a part on campus. The second goal of the Strategic Plan aims to advance the “vision of being a Lutheran university constituted by people of many and various beliefs and backgrounds, where faith, ethical character, and a sense of vocation are all nurtured in a community of freedom and a dialogue in the common pursuit of truth.”

The rewriting of the second goal allows Valparaiso University to empower the virtues of all faiths, leading to a promotion of social justice. Wetzstein teaches students “to examine their own motivations. If you’re a Roman Catholic student or an evangelical student or a Lutheran student, pay attention to where you’re tradition is and what it teaches.” It’s a lesson we can all accept.

Universally, what social justice demands of us is an assessment of our own morality and whether we can accept the wrongdoings in the world. It does not require taking on all the evils at once; but if each person focused whatever specifically calls upon them, then the odds don’t seem so insurmountable.

For those aspiring to change the world, Wetzstein has advice. “So find the issues that you’re passionate about, focus on them deeply and do them really well. Stay with them for the long haul.”