LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas’ largest university will rely on common courtesy when its new campuswide ban on cigarettes, cigars, pipes and tobacco use of any kind goes into effect Tuesday.

The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville announced the tobacco-free policy in May 2007 and began a marketing campaign called “Fresh” that includes a Web site, banners, decals and notices to sell the ban to the college community.

More importantly, each student, teacher, staff member and campus visitor will have to be considerate of each other for the ban to work, says Mary Alice Serafini, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs.

The university, with a student enrollment of about 18,000, chose to use a “model of compliance” and violators won’t face disciplinary action or penalties, she said.

Although a few smokers on the marketing Web site’s discussion list have vowed to smoke more to protest the new ban, Serafini says opponents tend to be more vocal than supporters. She said many student groups will help remind others of the policy when it goes into effect this week.

In 2001, the university joined other campuses across the country that ban smoking in buildings and within a specified distance of building entrances. Currently, at least 110 colleges and universities nationwide have smoke-free policies covering their entire campuses, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.

In Arkansas, campuswide bans are in place at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, North Arkansas College in Harrison, and Southern Arkansas University Tech in Camden, according to the foundation.

Serafini, who also is director of the university’s Pat Walker Health Center, worked with student groups, campus administrators, the Northwest Arkansas Tobacco-Free Coalition and UAMS in developing the new policy. The ban was based on a model from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials at other Arkansas colleges that have gone tobacco-free say the ban has worked out well, with only a few instances of noncompliance, mostly in the early stages.

“You typically get an outcry from a local minority. Over time, that goes away and people accept it. That’s happened at UAMS,” said Jim Raczynski, dean of the College of Public Health.

Raczynski said UAMS went tobacco-free, indoors and out, well before the state Legislature passed a law in 2005 making it a misdemeanor to smoke at hospitals. Still, the school relies on common courtesy, rather than campus police, to enforce the ban and has had relatively few instances when gentle reminders were necessary.