Sahmyook University Holds Anti-Smoking Campaign for No Tobacco Day
All faculty and staff non-smoking for 110 years, preserving a smoke-free, non-smoking campus

Sahmyook University (President Kim Sung-ik) held a smoking-cessation campaign at Solomon Plaza on campus on the 31st, in observance of “World No Tobacco Day,” designated by the World Health Organization (WHO).

This event was held at the Alcohol and Smoking Cessation Clinic to promote smoking cessation to students, and it received a strong response by being organized with programs in which students participated directly, such as stamping a “commitment to quit smoking” seal and composing two-line acrostic poems about quitting smoking. 

For 110 years since its founding, all faculty and staff at Sahmyook University have practiced non-smoking, and the entire campus has been designated a non-smoking area, strictly prohibiting smoking on campus.

In addition, Sahmyook University became the first in Korea to establish a smoking-cessation clinic as a university-affiliated institution, and through programs such as smoking-prevention education and a smoking-cessation school, it has informed students of the harms of smoking and fostered an atmosphere of smoking cessation.

Smoking-prevention education is a required liberal-arts course that every Sahmyook University student must complete; it educates students about the harms of smoking and helps them quit voluntarily.

Sahmyook University operates the “Health Promotion Scholarship,” known as a smoking-cessation scholarship. It encourages students by awarding scholarships to smokers who complete the smoking-cessation school course and then quit completely. From 2008 through last year, about 900 people took on the challenge; 404 succeeded in quitting and received scholarships.