Proofreading the provost

Thanks to Provost Karen Hanson’s e-mail last week, the topic of the smoking ban has seen renewed outrage across campus. I, for one, was enchanted by Hanson’s easygoing attitude toward grammar and sense. Here is her e-mail, with my thoughts italicized:\nAs you may know, Indiana University has made a determination (Has made a determination = has decided. Hire a proofreader, Karen Hanson.) that it will be tobacco-free on all its campuses by January 2008.\nIn compliance with this mandate (which the University itself mandated) and in order to promote a healthy environment (that also has a traffic problem and makes a killing off junk food) for all members of the campus community (most of whom binge-drink and smoke on weekends) IU-Bloomington has adopted a tobacco policy that can (can = may) be found at this Web site: http://www.smokefree.indiana.edu/IUB_Tobacco_Policy.pdf (a Web site that no one with an ambivalent interest in the information will visit and that only exists so that the University doesn’t look secretive about its policies).\nImplementation of the policy will depend upon the cooperation of all of us, and we want civility (smoking is for anarchists) and collegial good will (goodwill) to guide us (impersonal, relative values must guide us because too many actual people would see how inane the policy is) through this transition (which will ultimately be no transition because this ban is unenforceable).\nWe expect courtesy on all sides (even if you think this smoking ban is unacceptably absurd) as information about the policy is disseminated (which comes from the same Latin root as “semen,” not that anyone here is getting off on power) and as compliance is requested (but not after compliance is requested).\nThose who would like assistance in the form of tobacco cessation programs (and these people will invade the Health Center en masse, because it’s easier to quit smoking than to walk off campus to smoke) should know that, within the next few weeks, IU will announce a new tobacco cessation benefit for full-time academic staff and employees.\n(The new benefit will be paid for by IU (your tuition money, kids!) and will be available starting November 1, 2007. (Didn’t she just say this will start “in the next few weeks”?) More information, including a telephone number (you know you’re old and out of touch when you say “telephone number”) for enrollment, is available in the Open Enrollment materials.)\nThe Health and Wellness Department of the Health Center already offers, free of charge, smoking cessation programs for students\n(and, according to the Health Center Web site, to all IU employees. That’s right – not only will employee cessation programs be made available to employees “in the next few weeks” and “starting November 1,” they are already being offered). (For more information, call 855-7338.) Currently under construction, a new Web site will supply additional information about IU’s tobacco policy and its implementation. (The Web site address is: http://smokefree.indiana.edu.)\n(It might get a few hits. At least the URL is shorter than the last one.)\nThank you for your cooperation.