Colleges with anti-tobacco policies are finding they’re definitely having an impact on students’ smoking habits – and it may surprise you.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conducted a study in which 19 community colleges throughout their state were compared. They were divided into three groups:

Some of the schools had a 100% ban on tobacco.

Others restricted smoking to specific areas – or required smokers to be at least 15 feet away from buildings.

Still others hadn’t put any policies regarding outdoor tobacco use into place. (Indoor smoking is banned throughout the state of North Carolina.)

Researchers found 77% fewer cigarette butts littered the campuses of schools with a total ban on tobacco.

Maybe collecting smokers’ trash seems a less-than-scientific way to conduct a study.

But apparently this is one of the first studies to use some kind of objective measure for determining whether tobacco bans are making a difference on college campuses.

And low-tech as the study may be, the early results are encouraging.

Does your school ban smoking outdoors on campus? Let us know in the comments section below.

Some schools are going to extraordinary efforts to protect their students – and their reputations. That means coming up with some common-sense social media policies (and some that might be a little on the strict side).

You be the judge:

1. Villanova University – enacted a Twitter blackout for all student basketball players during the 2010 season

2. Ontario College of Teachers – advised faculty to avoid using social media for student communication, and use only “established education platforms” such as course websites

3. Kansas State University – suspended a student athlete after he tweeted he’d be “getting twisted tonight,” and required a social media training session for other players

4. University of North Carolina – handbook says each team must have “at least one coach or administrator … to regularly monitor the content of team members’ social networking”

5. New Jersey Institute of Technology – uses UDiligence to monitor Facebook, MySpace and Twitter pages of student athletes for posts that might negatively reflect upon the school

6. Sam Houston State University – insists that any student group using the college’s name (or SHSU) either join its official “social media universe” or change its name

7. University of Colorado – bans football players from posting or tweeting anything about the team

8. Colorado State University – specifies in its social media police that players not “post anything to embarrass the team” (unfortunately, this vague request didn’t stop a 2,000-attendee CSU party from being advertised on Facebook)

9. Ohio State University Medical Center – states employees should engage with patients and the community, but only use social media during non-working time

10. London School of Economics – objected to a post by a faculty member that was critical of the school, allegedly leading to his resignation

11. North Carolina State University – backed a resident advisor who wrote underage drinking citations for 14 students based on pictures she saw on Facebook

12. Montana State University – restricts student-athletes from linking to external sites promoting a product or service that’s unaffiliated with Bobcat Athletics without talking to the school’s marketing director (which means they have to be pretty cautious before clicking “Like” on anything!)

13. Eastern University – asks all academics-related Facebook group pages and Twitter feeds to have a minimum of one update per week or face deletion

14. Syracuse University – placed students on probation for creating a Facebook page bashing an instructor, and

15. Columbia University Department of Surgery – reserves the right to “delete or block any post or user account at any time without notice for any reason.” Yikes!

(Via The Matador Sports)

Agree with these policies? Scared by some of them? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Andrea Weathers, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, filed a lawsuit against the school. Weathers claimed she was denied tenure and a promotion based on her race, in violation of Title VII.

The court didn’t take long to reject her claim.

First of all, Weathers missed a filing deadline to apply for the post she sought. She tried to overcome this misstep by saying a timely application would have been futile, but there was no evidence supporting that position.

Even if she did submit a timely application, her claim would have stalled because she did not show she possessed the needed qualifications for promotion or tenure.

Weathers wasn’t able to point to another faculty member who was outside her protected class, had similar qualifications, and was promoted or granted tenure.

In short, her race bias claim fell short in a number of ways.

Cite: Weathers v. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Have a comment? Please add it below.

University of North Carolina student Sara Isaacson may be on the hook for the nearly $80,000 she received in a full-ride ROTC scholarship.

According to reports, Isaacson disclosed her sexual orientation to the head of the UNC’s ROTC program in a formal memo. As a result, Isaacson was given notice that she was being discharged from the Army for violating its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

Along with her discharge papers, she also received a recommendation: repay the $79,265.14 the government shelled out for her education.

The Army has not yet determined if Isaacson will be required to repay the money.

This should be an interesting situation, as Congress pushes ahead in its attempt to repeal the policy, which was issued by the Clinton administration in 1993. We’ll keep you posted.

Should she have to reimburse the government? Share your opinion in the comments section below.

A twintern is an intern who’s responsible for posting a company’s Twitter messages.

Take Alexa Robinson, for example. The University of North Carolina grad has an internship at Pizza Hut in Dallas, Texas.

She went up against hundreds of competitors for the honor of posting Twitter messages and commenting on other people’s tweets when her company’s name comes up.

Not all companies use interns to handle the social networking site. McDonald’s asks its execs to monitor Twitter. At Jet Blue, tweets come under the job description of the corporate communications manager.

But according to DailyTech.com, Alexa’s doing well in her internship. With two months remaining, she’s increased Pizza Hut’s followers from 3,000 to 13,000.

And if you’re curious about what she’s tweeting, here’s a recent sample: “Currently the Stuffed Pizza Rolls are only available with pepperoni. I’ll keep you posted if anything changes.”

Do you think hiring someone to monitor Twitter is a business savvy idea? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

In an attempt to reduce the number of teen pregnancies, UNC at Greensboro is providing classes in abstinence and the use of contraceptives to girls ages 12 to 18 — and paying them a dollar a day not to get pregnant.

Girls who attend the 90-minute weekly meetings – and who don’t get pregnant – collect $7 at the end of each week. The money is put aside and can be collected when the girls enter college.

But is it ethical to pay girls not to have babies? Or is this a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures?

The teen birth rate is on the rise these past two years, with 7.2 pregnancies for every 1,000 teenage girls.

Although a handful of girls enrolled in College Bound Sisters have gotten pregnant since it began more than 10 years ago, there are also success stories. This fall, in fact, four graduates will begin college with the help of the money – in some cases, $3,000 – they’ve earned in the program.

Good idea or bad incentive for staying baby-free? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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