Following the lead of other local colleges, Towson University is considering stomping out smoking on campus.

University President Robert Caret has asked the Substance Education Concerns Committee to research a policy that would ban smoking on campus. The committee expects to have a recommendation for Caret by the fall semester, said Jana Varwig, associate vice president for student development programs and services.

“What we will be doing is looking at what other colleges that have done this are experiencing,” Varwig said.

At least 40 colleges and universities in the nation have adopted entirely smoke-free campuses, according to the Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, a national organization against smoking. Harford Community College will ban smoking on campus starting July 1, with consequences for breaking the rules ranging from a fine to community service. Villa Julie College is also researching a smoking ban on its Stevenson and Owings Mills campuses.

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“It’s a really small minority of students who smoke on campus. It’s even a smaller minority that are bothering the nonsmokers,” said Jenny Haley, president of the Towson University’s Student Government Association.

About 10 to 12 percent of Towson University students smoke, said Jerome Dieringer, the college’s assistant vice president for student affairs and director of housing and residence life.

The university has already made strides to reduce the effects of smoking on campus, including making residence halls smoke-free in 2000 and enacting a rule requiring smokers to stand at least 30 feet away from the building entrances.

“That rule right now hasn’t been strictly enforced,” said Haley, a nonsmoker, adding that there are only two places on campus, both entrances to academic halls where smoking is “bothersome.”

Enforcing a smoking ban on campus raises questions with Dieringer, who will chair the smoking ban task force. He says he is also concerned about where smokers who live on campus will go if there’s a smoking ban, particularly at night.

Banning smoking on a public residential college campus would likely pass through any legal challenges, said Byron Warnken, associate professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

“It’s very difficult to strike down any government action if there is any rational basis ... anything for which there is a health issue would seem to support the [ban’s] constitutionality,” he said.

mmcilroy@baltimoreexaminer.com