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SAFEGUARDING THE WORKPLACE |
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Environmental Health & Safety: Safeguarding the Workplace |
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Mergers and Takeovers Topic of Recent Forum for 21st Century |
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A truly, completely safe and healthy workplace. It's easy to consider that a necessity, but harder to make the necessity a reality at a large and complex institution like UMass Boston. Even so, UMass Boston's Environmental Health and Safety Office (EH&S) has taken on the job.
"We're here to make certain that the University has a compliant and professionally driven occupational health and safety program," says EH&S Director Karen Deady. EH&S also works to insure University compliance with critical federal and state environmental regulations. But compliance is not the only or ultimate goal. To reflect the University's commitment to safety and health and "really fulfill the standards of care," Deady adds, "we need to go beyond the regulations we're subject to."
One small office can't&emdash;and doesn't&emdash;do all this by itself. "Everyone on campus has responsibilities for health and safety," says Deady. She and her professional staff, Associate Director Brian Dumser and Environmental Coordinator Zehra Schneider Graham, work with hundreds of faculty members, staff members, and students to strengthen protections for the University community and its surrounding environment. "Our philosophy is to be proactive and collaborative," says Deady, "not dictatorial and reactive."
A case in point is the lab safety program, through which science faculty with lab management responsibilities conduct monthly inspections using detailed EH&S checklists. EH&S also provides training for lab workers and conducts exhaustive annual reviews of lab operations. Each review involves both a methodical inspection of facilities and a thorough discussion of procedures. "It's very formal," says Deady. "It has to be. This is serious business." If the inspection program brings concerns to light, EH&S helps to address them.
A visit to the EH&S web site reveals many of the ways in which EH&S works to anticipate and prevent safety problems. For example, EH&S can:
• help lab managers meet monthly lab inspection requirements
• investigate reports of unsafe conditions
• conduct health hazard evaluations and safety audits
• test general ventilation systems and lab fume hoods
• provide health and safety hazard data in all areas of concern, including chemicals
• coordinate the safe disposal of hazardous chemical waste products
• help with developing safe work practices and selecting personal protective equipment
• conduct job-specific training sessions
The web site also provides information on such matters as University policies, fire and chemical safety programs, evacuation procedures, medical emergencies and first aid, and ways to insure unobstructed pathways from work areas to safety. The site is itself an important avenue of communication, and everyone is encouraged to visit it (go to www.umb.edu, then click on "Administration" and "Environmental Health and Safety"). Phone calls to the office (x75445) are also most welcome. In case of after-hours emergencies, callers should contact Public Safety at 911; an EH&S staff member is always on call and can be reached whenever necessary.
Another critical connection between EH&S and the University community is the Environmental Health and Safety Advisory Committee, which is composed of faculty, staff, and student representatives, including representatives of all campus unions. This committee was created in 1994, together with the EH&S office, as part of an aggressive effort to strengthen health and safety programs in the wake of a campus-wide air quality emergency. The committee has now met many of its original objectives, which included formalizing health and safety policies and identifying effective ways to provide information to campus communities. It continues to gather regularly to consider emerging issues. EH&S also works with several other committees, among them groups focusing on laboratory chemical hygiene and on safety for facility workers. New concerns can arise from such meetings, and so can new responses, such as a budding ergonomics project which has already led Deady to review some thirty work stations and offer recommendations on everything from keyboard configurations to work styles.
Inspections, training sessions, and committee discussions make EH&S visible on campus. Sometimes, as when leaks or equipment breakdowns cause safety hazards, the spotlight can be very bright indeed. Behind the scenes quieter work continues: reviewing architectural plans to insure occupational safety, for example, or developing a program for recycling chemicals&emdash;even travelling to such remote locations as Alabama and Nebraska to make certain that hazardous waste from University labs has been properly disposed of. Every activity has one goal: a safer, cleaner work environment, sustained by the conscious effort of every member of the University community.
"We're trying to develop a positive safety culture," says Karen Deady, "and I think we're beginning to succeed."