This book integrates the findings from twenty studies on the problem of high school and college student cigarette smoking that have been conducted in collaboration with a fantastically talented group of undergraduate students at Ursinus College. The research groups have included former, in-transition, and nonsmoker students. This summary report of the results of these various studies may assist others interested in responding to the expanding problem of campus tobacco use, and may suggest ways of getting students involved in this issue. Use of similar surveys and interventions may help others to increase their own campus? awareness of this threat. These types of efforts may also help them to counter the national trend on their own campus, perhaps making their institution a healthy exception to the rule.

I am delighted to note that on our own campus, the changes in smoking behavior that have accompanied our decade of research have been in the right direction. During our early years of data collection, the percentage of students who had never smoked was lower than it has been in the past five years (58% versus 65%) and over twice as many students in the early sample (1999-2005) reported daily cigarette use, when compared with those in the current (2006-2011) sample (8.2% versus 3.2%). A host of cultural and legal changes have doubtless contributed to this promising trend, but we like to think that research projects increasing campus awareness of the social hazards of smoking may also have played a bit of a role in these shifts.