Interview with: Alicia Bergholm

TC: What is your opinion on vaping?

AB: I don’t like it. I think a lot of these young kids that are doing it aren’t educated on it. It’s not good for you. We lost a couple of family members to lung cancer. So I don’t agree with vaping I don’t like it.

TC: What would you do if you caught a student vaping at the school?

AB: I would bring them to my office and talk about why they decided to do it at school out of all the places and they would have a consequence for vaping. 

TC: What consequences would take place with the student who was vaping?

AB: Possible one-day suspension. And I guess it depends on the severity of the case that they would have to do Saturday study tables. 

Interview with: Dr. Linda Kern

TC: What is your opinion on vaping?

LK: So from what I understand from having heard about it a bit, Start over from what I’ve read about it. And the information I can find, it poses problems on a couple of levels. First of all, it has chemicals in it, apparently, that we don’t really understand. That is leading to a lot of lung issues, health issues, including pneumonia. Anyway, So from what I can read, it causes health problems. They’re also apparently some of these vaping pods or whatever they’re called, that you people are selling. And they don’t realize that they’ve been repackaged, and so they have even more damaging things in them. But The thing that even beyond that, that really concerns me is that it has nicotine in it. So although some people were using it to stop smoking cigarettes, because it had the nicotine, for young kids who are vaping, it’s giving them a nicotine addiction that actually leads to them, in many cases, smoking cigarettes, And I don’t think anybody is thinking about these things in advance. People think it’s just like an, you know, an innocent pleasure, but it has these really serious health risks. 

PRINT: It poses problems on a couple of levels. First of all, it has chemicals in it that we don’t really understand. That is leading to a lot of lung issues, health issues, including pneumonia… But, the thing that even beyond that, that really concerns me is that it has nicotine in it. So, although some people were using it to stop smoking cigarettes, for young kids who are vaping, it’s giving them a nicotine addiction that actually leads to them, in many cases, smoking cigarettes. And, I don’t think anybody is thinking about these things in advance. People think it’s just like an innocent pleasure, but it has these really serious health risks. 

TC: What would you do if you caught a student vaping? 

LK: So I believe that this is something which is against school rules, that we would certainly refer them to Ms. Bergholm, to have a conversation about the circumstances and determine appropriate circumstances consequences, because depending on whether it was the first time a student had been caught or something like that, you know, the consequences might be different. However, I think that we are trying to work on the education side of this to help students understand why this is not a path you want to go down. And hopefully, then we won’t have to focus as much on catching students and consequences that make sense. Thank you.

Print: This is something which is against school rules. We would certainly refer them to Ms. Bergholm to have a conversation about the circumstances and determine appropriate consequences because, depending on whether it was the first time a student had been caught or something like that, the consequences might be different. However, I think that we are trying to work on the education side of this to help students understand why this is not a path you want to go down. And hopefully, then we won’t have to focus as much on catching students and consequences.

Interview with Wendy Connolly: 

TC: What knowledge do you have on vaping?

WC: I have limited understanding of vaping mainly from my own teenage son and what I’ve heard on the news and it doesn’t sound like it’s a healthy way to live.

TC: What would you do if you found a student vaping here at Notre Dame?

WC: If I was to find a student vaping, I would have to follow procedure of the school and go to Ms. Bergholm to let them know, unfortunately, and hopefully persuade them to change their ways.