Building partnerships for a Tobacco Free Campus Initiative

Audience:  Individuals learning to build partnerships for a tobacco free campus: students, schools/departments, administrators, and policy leaders.  Participants may come from a variety of backgrounds from novice to experienced, student to faculty, and administrator to system leadership. 

Key Points:  The initial team included members from the School of Nursing, Student Health, Wellness, and Psychological services.  The team expanded to student government, Office of Student Engagement and Diversity, Association of Pre-Medical students, and other student groups.  Faculty/staff stakeholders included faculty senate, professional and classified staff councils, Provost, Dean's council and President's cabinet.  Identifying, nurturing and cultivating these relationships early and often were key to maintaining momentum.  In addition to campus resources, community members who could offer expertise were crucial, as well as networking on user groups for specific or general questions and problem solving.  Barriers to our efforts included vocal student groups, administrators hesitant to make change, lack of education, conservative student newspaper, and strong libertarian views in Nevada.

Educational Experience: This poster will provide learners with a checklist of key partnerships to identify, cultivate and collaborate with as a tobacco free policyis developed in a campus setting.  Review of barriers encountered as well as resources used to create talking points, written handouts and sites to review current tobacco policy will be provided. 

Benefits:  This poster is relevant to those who are interested in initiating tobacco-free policy in a university setting or large public institution.