After reading the article on the new smoking policies, I would like to bring up points that were not brought to the table in the article “No Butts About It.” If you have ever walked by the smoking section behind King Hall, I’m sure you have noticed that there is a combination of both traditional and CCE students. This is the only place on Campus where traditional and CCE students mix outside of class.

As a traditional student, I believe that CCE students bring a different perspective on life and a wealth of knowledge to Guilford. CCE students are unique aspect of our community. I would like to continue forging friendships and learning from them outside of a classroom setting. If we go smoke-free (as foreshadowed by Aaron Fetrow’s comment), we will lose a vital connection that CCE and traditional students have to each other. No other place on campus do we get to sit and talk with CCE, traditional, professors and staff in a non-classroom based hierarchy.

The second point that I have about the gains of the smoking section is the conversations we have. The best conversations I have at Guilford have been in the smoking sections. If you go to the smoking section you are able to join political debates, conversations on religion, morality, classes, the physics of what keeps a plane in the air, etc. You name it, we talk about it. Some of these conversations last for ten minutes. Some last for hours. The best thing is that you get everyone’s thoughts and ideas out because there is so much diversity and it is not in a structured classroom setting. I invite Aaron Fetrow to come down and have a conversation with us and see the diversity of ideas.

My last and most vital point is that if we want to keep Guilford a “College That Changes Lives,” don’t try and make us High Point University. Don’t make us Elon University. Don’t try to make us every other college out there. This goes beyond the smoking policies. I believe that we are losing what makes Guilford exceptional. We are losing sight of what makes us unique and why many of my peers and I chose Guilford.