Danielle Haberly

The Student Government Association voted last week to endorse a tobacco-free campus policy that received support from students via a survey attached to the spring election ballots.

“We feel that this is a really big issue with funding and health concerns and I think that the University as a whole should move towards(sic) … enacting policies to promote health for our students,” Senator Brakeyshia Samms said.

An anonymous group of Student Government Association senators motioned for the impeachment of Vice President Kortlan Porter during their general assembly meeting last Wednesday just two weeks before the conclusion of his term.

After about an hour and a half of debate, a blind vote of SGA officers and representatives failed to produce the two-thirds vote needed to remove Porter from office.

New rules for research grant funding have encouraged Student Government Association representatives to consider a policy to that would ban on-campus tobacco use.

SGA officers and senators are discussing whether to support a tobacco policy change representatives have debated intermittently for more than a year.

The issue came to the forefront in February, as members discussed the possibility of seeking grant funding from the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas.