Ohlone College - Students Towards a Rapid Smoke-Free School (STARSS)

Public two-year college located in Fremont, California
Enrollment: 12,500 students
Type/Category: Student Activism

Program: Students Towards a Rapid Smoke-Free School (STARSS) is a student organization that advocates for smoke-free policies at Ohlone College. The Ohlone Student Health Center established STARSS in the fall of 2001 when the college received funding to raise awareness about its smoking policy. Because the effort is student-driven, there is greater likelihood of student acceptance and adherence to campus smoking policies.

Results: Specific accomplishments of STARSS from 2001 to the present include:

• strengthening Ohlone’s smoking policy, which now allows smoking in only four designated smoking areas and parking lots
• the creation of “Ciggybuttz,” a character that promotes Ohlone’s smoking policies to students through advertisements
• the establishment of tobacco prevention/education programs on campus
• involvement in the local tobacco control coalition
• participation in two legislative meetings with a State Senator and Assembly member in which STARRS advocated for a tobacco tax increase and funding for tobacco prevention efforts
• presentations at the 2001 National Conference on Tobacco and Health and Ohlone’s Spring Health Fair
• participation in a tobacco global partnership with a university in the Ukraine
• involvement with the student health center in the implementation of cessation counseling services and the addition of ‘smoking status’ to the list of vital signs used in student health evaluations
• participation in the Great American Smokeout, Kick Butts Day, and other cessation promotion events

Future: After two active years, the Ohlone STARSS program received additional funding to continue with its awareness activities and to work towards its policy goal of a smoke-free campus by 2005.

Cost: Ohlone shares a $144,000 grant from Alameda County Tobacco Control Program with Las Positas College and the University of California, Berkeley. All three schools take part in the STARSS program. STARSS is cost effective because instead of hiring staff members, it relies on student volunteers, providing them with opportunities to get involved with important policy change on campus.

Contact Information:
Sang Leng Trieu, MPH, CHES
Health Education Coordinator
Ohlone College Student Health Center
strieu@ohlone.edu

This case study brief was written in September 2003.

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