DCHAS-L Archives, Jul 12 2021 - Re: [DCHAS-L] Organizing for lab safety programs

Hello,

I think you (Ralph) probably already know this, but I am on three safety committees here at our university: the Laboratory Safety and Chemical Hygiene Committee (all of our science departments and I chair this one), the Arts Chemical Hygiene Committee and the Facilities Safety Committee (which covers more than just chemicals). I'm always happy to share any of my experiences. As the Chemical Hygiene Officer, I'm also what I think you are referring to as an Embedded safety professional.

As for the Lab Safety Committee, I have members from each department in the sciences represented, as well as someone from our Student Health Center, the EH&S department and someone from our Sponsored Research Office.

Pros:

1. Diverse group gives a wider range of input and has been overall very helpful.

2. Group meets monthly, but if we are reviewing SOPs or creating a new policy/procedure, some of the work is done virtually via the Google Suite.

3. Possibly one of the only times these groups really get together and they seem to all have very useful information to contribute.

Cons:

1. Diverse group means some of the time, we are talking about topics that are of very little interest to certain departments. For example, when we talk about Field Safety, that is not something that our Chemistry folks deal with. But they sometimes do have valuable insight and ideas!

2. Students aren't represented here...so maybe we need a student rep? Or maybe our Chem Club could have some version of a Lab Safety Team....brainstorming here, but it might be nice to get them to work with me...maybe on doing the inspections in the Chemistry labs?

Shannon

SHANNON C. NEPHEW,

MS, CSM, CCHO

Chemical Hygiene Officer, Hudson Hall Science Complex Building Manager

Science Programs and Facilities Support Professional

Hudson Hall 317

101 Broad Street
Plattsburgh, NY 12901

(o) 518-593-9612

plattsburgh.edu

On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 9:22 AM Ralph Stuart <Ralph.Stuart**At_Symbol_Here**keene.edu> wrote:

I am helping to develop a fall CHAS workshop on building safety cultures in labs and one topic we would like to cover is ways of organizing groups to support proactive safety cultures in the academic lab setting.

At broad level, the three approachs we are considering discussing are:
- Traditional safety committees (at all of the various scales that they arise - department, college, institutional);
- Laboratory Safety Teams (active groups of lab workers who focus on safety); and
- Embedded safety professionals (departmental staff whose job assignments include a significant portion of safety responsibilities)

I would be interested in people who have experience with one or another of these approaches to lab safety culture as to what are the top three pros and cons of each approach. This is still a rapidly evolving field with many different variations, so I would appreciate as diverse a set of replies as possible in thinking about what to highlight in the workshop.

Thanks for sharing any thoughts on this.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
Environmental Safety Manager
Keene State College
603 358-2859

ralph.stuart**At_Symbol_Here**keene.edu

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