Berry College is the latest institution to ban tobacco, effective Aug. 1.

The new policy will apply to all employees, students, contractors and guests. The ban covers, in addition to tobacco, electronic cigarettes, vapor and chewing tobacco.

Smoking is not allowed now in campus buildings or on the Martha Berry Museum and Oak Hill properties, but will be banned campus-wide under the new policy.

The college will offer free tobacco-cessation services to students, employees and spouses through a $12,000 CVS Health Community grant funding nicotine-replacement-therapy products.

With the new policy in place, Berry joins the 1,477 smoke-free campuses in the nation, of which 975 are tobacco-free. The University System of Georgia implemented a tobacco ban at all of its institutions in October 2014.

Berry, a private college near Rome, has a student enrollment of about 2,220, and is said to be the largest campus in the world, with 27,000 acres.

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