SMOKING IN COLLEGE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 8, 9 July 1935, Page 7

SMOKING IN COLLEGE

AN AUCKLAND BAN

WOMEN STUDENTS ANNOYED

VICTORIA COLLEGE COMMENT

"A blow at feminist liberty" has aroused the indignation of women students at Auckland University College. It is an order of the Professorial Board that they as women may not smoke in any part of the college buildings. "It is absurd and entirely unnecessary," said several women students of Victoria University College in reference to the Auckland ban. Members of the "moderate party"1 at Auckland, it is stated, agreed that some restriction should be placed on smoking in the common room, as it was not uncommon, when the practice was allowed, to find the room with every door and window shut and the air blue with smoke—conditions which were a source of annoyance to girls who were not smokers. But it is felt, in Auckland as in Wellington, that in banning smoking altogether the Professorial Board has taken a far too drastic course. The upshot has been heated criticism of the "grandmotherly attitude" of the professors and a feeling of disappointment that the students are not allowed to manage their ow,n affairs outside the lecture rooms. "NEVER ANY FUSS HERE." "There has never been any fuss about smoking at Victoria College," said one woman student today. "We appear to be fortunate in having a broad-minded Professorial Board. It does seem ridiculous to impose such restrictions on students in what is really a purely personal affair. There seems no reason why women students should not smoke in the common-room if they want to, and as for banning it altogether—it is ridiculous. •At Victoria we are allowed to elect our own women's committee, as they are at Auckland, and we are trusted to control our affairs unhampered by interference from the board. Smoking is allowed also in one end of the cafeteria." PURELY A PRIVATE MATTER. At Victoria, College there is no rule about smoking except that it is not allowdd in the corridors, said the chairman of the Professorial Board, Professor J. Rankine Brown. The matter was purely a private one concerning the students themselves, and as far as he knew there had-never been any restriction on either men or women smoking except the one he had mentioned. There was, he considered, no objection to women smoking in moderation in the common-rooms. The question, in fact, had never been raised.