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Campus Clean-Up – Celebrating Tobacco-Free Policy and Improving the Campus Environment

Health, Safety, and Well-being
April 12, 2016 Reba Borden Montana State University Billings

College campuses across the nation are considered a second home to thousands of students. As with our home, we expect it to be a healthy, clean, and safe environment. These types of expectations for college campuses are easily attainable through peer education efforts.

In an effort to improve the Montana State University Billings campus environment, the peer education group known as HEROES (Health Educators Reaching Others & Encouraging Success) created an annual program known as Campus Clean-Up. This program was designed to not only clean up the outside environment of the campus, but also to promote tobacco policy awareness. This event has informed the Billings community and beyond, that Montana State University Billings is a tobacco-free campus and that the students, staff, and faculty are dedicated to promoting a healthy environment for those who spend time on campus.

How Campus Clean-Up Works

The program “Campus Clean-Up” is an annual event that is part of a week at Montana State University Billings known as “Be Kind Week”. Around the time of Earth Day, MSUB also celebrates University Day. The Campus Clean-Up program combines the two days. On University Day our offices are open but there are no classes being held. We set up tables in the center of our campus with plastic bags, trash bags, gloves, hand sanitizer, and free giveaways for helping. Anyone who wants to help signs a sheet with their name as a way to keep count of how many people have contributed. We give them gloves, a plastic bag, and a trash bag. The plastic bag is to put cigarette butts in and the trash bag is for any other litter on our campus. Typically people help clean for an hour and come in groups. Once they have finished they bring back the cigarette butts and trash bags to hand in. Afterwards we give away hand sanitizer and some swag to thank them for their effort. Last year we gave away water bottles with our peer education logo and “Earth” stress balls.

At the end of the program, we hold a barbecue to celebrate all that is accomplished. This is a fun way to end and rewards all of the people who participated and took time out of their busy schedules to volunteer. 

 Students help clean up campusHow We Evaluate Campus Clean-Up & How Your College Can Replicate It

In the process of planning our program we complete a program guide. This guide includes our SMART program objectives, event description, activities, partners, planning checklist, supplies, budget, promotion planning, and program evaluation.

The program evaluation includes successes, improvement areas, and changes for next time. The evaluation also has a section for comments and questions from participants, and results from learning outcomes. 

At every event, we have three jars that are labeled with three questions for participants to answer or provide feedback. As a peer education group, we discuss the feedback from participants and incorporate it into the plan for next year.

The learning outcomes are what we use to determine if the program met our objectives. Students are asked to fill out a sheet about what they learned from the event. If what they put matches with our objectives, we know we were successful!

This program guide has helped us understand the process of having an educational event that involves objectives, implementation, and evaluation. It also holds members accountable for the tasks they signed up to complete for the event. It has been every effective in our group.

We also include a tabling sheet with every event we do. This sheet lists the type and number of educational handouts and give away items distributed, the number of participants, and the volunteers present. This helps us identify how many students came to the event and which educational handouts were taken.

If your campus is looking for ways to conduct continuing education about your tobacco policy or ways to keep the campus environment clean, try doing Campus Clean-Up around Earth Day. You might be surprised by how many people are willing to support your efforts!