I was a little late to the game, but in the mid-80s my parents took us to a screening of 2001 a Space Odyssey at the local university, and although they weren't in use by then, all of the desks in the lecture hall had ashtrays build into their armrests.

There was a smocking area for students in my high school. Never seen anyone smocking in classrooms though.

At one time, a pipe was nearly as stereotypical of professors as a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows.

There is a youtube video of renowned physicist Sidney Coleman (RIP giving a classroom lecture about general relativity or something. I was watching it, listening along, and at one point in the lecture he stopped to light a smoke, then kepc lecturing with the cig in his hand. I almost busted up laughing.

Oppenheimer also would lecture while holding a cigaratte, according to biographies of him that I've read, but he was before my time and I've never seen any videos of him.

I do remember going to Palo Alto Medical Foundation in the mid 1970s, and waiting in the exam room until the doctor walked in, puffing on a cigarette.

More Doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette

https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU4NDI2ODU5NTc3NTUwM...

We called it "the smoke hole".

By the mid-80s, kids generally couldn’t smoke in school in the US. Each school district or town or state had their own rules, though. I was told by kids a few years older than me that my high school allowed seniors to smoke in the early 80s. The 70s I think there were even fewer restrictions on the kids, but there were designated areas. You didn’t smoke in class.

But it changed mid-80s for students. There’s a famous 1989 song called “Smoking in the Boys Room” by Motley Crue, referencing kids going to the bathroom to smoke and then quickly leaving before getting caught.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5oVBvxA0mm0

Smokin' in the boys room

Teacher don't you fill me up with your rule

'Cause everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school

Checkin' out the hall, makin' sure the coast is clear

Lookin' in the stalls, nah, there ain't nobody here

Brownsville Station was singing that song in the early 70s:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokin%27_in_the_Boys_Room

It obviously varied by area of the country, or perhaps school district. There was no smoking at our schools in the 70s.

It's way older than that. "Smokin' in the Boys Room" is originally by Brownsville Station, 1973.

Random ashtray history: the massive SAGE computer system (1958), built for air defense, had ashtrays and cigarette lighters physically built into the computer consoles.