CSHEMA - Campus Safety, Health, and Environmental Management Association

Upcoming Professional Development Seminars

Keep an eye out for more exciting PDS in 2022!

Past Professional Development Seminars

Lab Safety 201

May 11th and 13th AND May 18th and 20th, 2021

This PDS is intended to develop and improve the participant’s knowledge of a comprehensive laboratory safety program. The class is framed around the "life cycle of the lab" -from when the new researcher just arrives, to when they ramp up their research, to the time they leave or retire. Topics include new lab outreach, risk assessment, hazard communication, chemical and hazard management, and lab closeouts. With this approach, the participants will be empowered to develop and maintain a comprehensive lab safety program. The course is a collaborative effort from the Laboratory Safety Community of Practice and is intended for attendees from small colleges to large universities with research enterprises of all types.

Conflict Management and Resolution Workshop |
Description, Learning Objectives, Design, Exercise Prompts (as questions), and Assessing/Evaluating

January 19th and 21st AND January 26th and 28th, 2021

How many times have you found that a safety issue is actually a conflict that just happens to be about safety? Let's face it - in safety we deal with a lot of conflict management needs - it's just part of what we do.  In this workshop we'll look at the nature of conflicts (they can be helpful if approached the right way), what works and what doesn't, communication and active listening skills, perspective vs. perception, human behavior and decision making, and how to build up your skills in these areas. We'll engage in active learning with practices, discussion on the learning, some role playing, and have fun throughout the day.  

 

Be a part of a special program for women seeking to become leaders in higher education, December 9–12, 2020 in Palm Springs, California.

Co-produced by several higher education associations, including CSHEMA, this unique program will bring together administrators from across campus functions to help you: 

• Hone your leadership skills for working in a rapidly changing environment
• Develop a better understanding of the campus as a workplace and culture
• Share experiences with others about how campuses are adapting and adjusting to the new reality
• Create new personal networks and networking skills to better tap the higher education community

Through presentations, small-group exercises, and discussion, you will gain a practical understanding of what it takes to be a leader on a college or university campus—both the challenges and the rewards. Examine the unique roles, skills, and relationships needed to lead as higher education faces and deals with the most challenging period in 50 years.

Virtual Spring Symposium

Collaboration | April 27-28, 2021

University EHS professionals collaborate on things all the time with many different stakeholders on many different areas of their work - from internal campus departments, schools within the universities, other universities, high schools, and industry. We do this because we learn early in our EHS careers that collaboration is at the heart of what we do and everyone involved in safety anywhere believes in sharing knowledge so all everyone is safe on the job wherever that is.

Agenda 

***All times listed are in CDT

Tuesday, April 27th, 2021

Wednesday, April 28th, 2021

Session Descriptions

Who is Fay M. Thompson?
Presented by Bruce Bakus, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Environmental Health and Safety

Who is Fay M. Thompson, PhD, and why is CSHEMA's Scholarship named after her? Learn about this pioneering and important leader from CSHEMA's past.

About the presenter
Bruce Backus is the assistant vice chancellor of environmental health and safety (EH&S) at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) and he has been in the position since 2003. From 1998 to 2003, Bruce was the director of environmental health and safety at Washington University School of Medicine, and from 1988 to 1998, he was the director of the environmental management facility, environmental compliance officer, and the assistant director of environmental health and safety at the University of Minnesota.

Bruce is a past president of CSHEMA. He received the 2020 CSHEMA Honorary Life Award and the 2020 BLR (Business & Legal Resources) Lifetime Achievement in Safety Award, amongst other recognitions.

Safety Monitors – A Partnership for a Successful Building Emergency Evacuation Program
Presented by Darius Griffin, EHS Director, UNC Charlotte

A successful building emergency evacuation program in a University setting requires collaboration with internal and external stakeholders. This presentation will address the practices and challenges in developing a robust building emergency evacuation program and designating personnel to assist with the evacuation (Safety Monitors).

Learning Objectives: 

To share UNC Charlotte's approach to appointing, training, and preparing personnel (Safety Monitors) to assist in a safe and orderly building evacuation.

About the presenter
Darius Griffin has over 19 years of higher education experience at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he currently serves as the Director of Environmental Health and Safety. UNC Charlotte’s Environmental Health and Safety program encompass a wide array of environment, health, and safety risk. Darius holds a B.S. in Occupational Safety and Health and a Master of Public Administration. He is also a Certified Safety Professional (CSP) and Associate Risk Management (ARM).

Works Better in Training – Humor or Narrative?
Presented by Jonathan Klane, BioRAFT

Humor and stories are both used in training, but which one works better? Most trainers use both without considering their effectiveness, so we decided to test it empirically.

We studied 3 biomedical engineering classes using identical topics delivered differently in dual-sections. We measured learning-transfer using pre/post-training quizzes including post 2 weeks and end of the semester (to test retention). We separated out ‘attitude’ via post-training surveys on the training/trainer. We got good results. Are you curious?  Come learn what we did and our results!

About the presenter
Jonathan’s 30+ year career spans many diverse roles and settings including Safety Director for two Colleges of Engineering, teaching EHS and management courses for two colleges back east, and 20+ years as a consultant and trainer.  He now focuses on the people side of safety including researching risk perceptions and the use of narratives to affect them as well as teaching soft skills such as conflict management.

COVID-19 A New Ongoing Challenge for Facility Services
Presented by Dennis A. Terpin, Retired University of Illinois, Chicago

We all recognize that our Colleges and Universities may experience challenges in complying with certain provisions of the all the new safety related guidelines and standards because of the COVID-19 pandemic, including those standards require the use of certain types of face coverings, PPE, respirators with may can include provisions for medical evaluation, medical surveillance, fit testing, and job specific and performance-based training for the affected employees. Let’s explore the potential impacts on our campuses.

Learning Objectives:

• Investigate if the just released National Emphasis Program – Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) can impact facility operations.
• Recognize what are the new challenges to facility operations during and after COVID-19.
• Recognize how to troubleshoot Local Exhaust Ventilation Systems (LEV).
• Identify how the new ASTM F3502−21 Standard Specification for Barrier Face Coverings can impact Facility operations
• Explain the importance of Job Safety Analysis and PPE assessments during and after COVID-19
• Review new respiratory protection, respirators and fit testing changes in 2021.

About the presenter
Retired Senior Industrial Hygienist/Emergency Manager University of Illinois, Chicago, a member of the ASTM Committee F23.65 on Personal Protective Clothing/Equipment and Respiratory Protection, Dennis is a Certified Master Level Instructor for FEMA/Department of Homeland Security. Dennis has over 50 years of experience in the Occupational Safety and Health, Laboratory Safety and Emergency Management/Response fields.

Enlisting the community to enhance laboratory safety: the Chemical Safely Library Case Study
Presented by Carmen Nitsche, General Manager, Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre

When an accident in the lab occurs, one tries to learn from it so it does not happen again. But how do you share such learnings across organizations? The Chemical Safely Library project at the Pistoia Alliance tackled this issue through a collaborative, crowd-sourced approach. The team focused on laboratory reaction incidents and near misses with the aim of creating a freely available database made up from community contributed learnings. CAS, A Division of the American Chemical Society, recently rebuilt and is hosting the platform. We hope the CSHEMA community will help grow the resource.

Learning Objectives:

• Awareness of the CSL resource
• Review of how to submit incidents
• Discussion on how to enlist the community to create a more rich and useful resource into the future

About the presenter
Carmen Nitsche is General Manager at Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, Inc and Chair of the joint Pistoia Alliance (PA)/ CAS Chemical Safety Library (CSL) Advisory Panel. Immediately prior, Carmen was responsible for membership and project development at the PA. It is through that role that Carmen became deeply involved in the CSL project from its inception through to its recent collaboration with CAS. She lives in Long Branch, New Jersey and enjoys practicing Bikram Yoga wherever her travels take her, which right now means the guest bedroom.

Fume Hood Monitoring Optimization: A Collaboration Between EH&S, Facilities, and the Academic Units
Presented by Erica Gonzaga, Associate Director for Research Services, University of Florida and James Fleetwood, Director of Safety and Security, CoE, University of Florida

Conducting repairs of fume hoods that were out of service frequently required a multi-step approach from departmental and lab staff including parallel lines of communication with EH&S and Facilities. This process often resulted in miscommunication and the delay of repairs. This presentation focuses on the collaborative approach between EH&S, Facilities Services, and the academic units to optimize and streamline the process for fume hood monitoring and maintenance. The goal was to increase safety for Facilities personnel, decrease the required paperwork, and automate the process for lab staff.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify bottleneck areas in their processes and provide guidance on how to work through their issues in a similar collaborative approach.
• Understand the challenges of implementing change and how to overcome the challenges for a smooth transition.
• Understand the importance of building relationships outside of their own department to solve problems.
• Recognize the importance of collaborative feedback from non-EH&S personnel.
• Streamline their own fume hood monitoring process.

About the presenters
Erica Gonzaga, Associate Director for Research Services, University of Florida, as the Associate Director of Research Services, Erica oversees EH&S's Lab Safety, Biosafety, Radiation Safety, and Hazardous Materials Management groups.
James Fleetwood, Director of Safety and Security, CoE, University of Florida, as the Director of Safety and Security for the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, James frequently collaborates with UF EH&S staff members to improve the safety culture within Engineering and the University as a whole.

Effective collaboration to address communicable disease outbreaks on campus: The University of Washington Advisory Committee
Presented by Sheryl Schwartz, EH&S Assistant Director for Campus Preventive Health, Univ. of Washington

The UW ACCD, established in 1986, is comprised of tri-campus stakeholders, including housing & food services, EH&S, student health center, emergency management, HR, media relations, public health, UW Medicine, and more. Typically, ACCD works on vaccination policies and pandemic planning. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ACCD meets regularly (virtually) to discuss emerging issues, monitor the outbreak, assess its impact on UW, share information and diverse perspectives, provide recommendations to UW leadership, and shape guidance to the UW community. Currently, EH&S leads and supports ACCD.

Learning Objectives:

• The structure and composition of a successful campus-wide collaboration to address prevention and control of communicable disease at a large three-campus university
• The importance of subject matter experts to provide public health information and contextual information to university professionals who are not trained in public health or occupational health
• The benefit to University leadership of receiving input from a wide range of stakeholders, including public health and medical experts, when making decisions about complex issues related to communicable diseases

About the presenter
Sheryl Schwartz is the assistant director for campus preventive health at the University of Washington EH&S Department. In this capacity, she oversees public health programs, including the University’s response to communicable disease outbreaks. Before joining UW’s EH&S department in 2014, Sheryl was the deputy director of the UW Health Promotion Research Center, in UW School of Public Health. She holds a masters degree from the UW Evans School of Public Policy and Governance.

Field Safety Avengers Assemble!
Presented by Anthony Appleton, Research Safety Culture Coordinator, Colorado State University

Field Research at Colorado State University takes place everywhere: agriculture and forestry in our own backyard to international veterinarian experiences to arctic research and seemingly everywhere in between. And yet, 150 years into our existence, we still did not have unifying guidance on conducting field research safely. A diverse team was needed to develop a usable document, "Considerations for Field Work." This work involved EHS, Risk Management, Biosafety, PIs, Directors, and Research Associate Deans working remotely using MS Teams.

Learning Objectives:

• Identification of Stakeholders
• Work Flow
• Using MS Teams for Collaborative Work
• Usability First, Compliance Will Follow
• Maintaining Brevity
• Living Document, More Collaboration

About the presenter
Anthony is the Coordinator for the Research Safety Culture Program (RSCP) at CSU. The RSCP works collaboratively across the University to ensure productive, synergistic relationships within our research community to continuously improve our positive, proactive safety culture that is critical to and enhances CSU’s world-renowned research. A recent project is the development of a document entitled "Considerations for Field Work." Since January 2019, Anthony has collaborated on developing various resources, services, and programs (https://www.research.colostate.edu/research-safety-culture/).

The evolution of the Northwest Regional EHS Directors’ Conference Call
Presented by Scott Jaqua, Assistant Director of EHS / Radiation Safety Officer, Portland State University

The CSHEMA community understands more than most that knowing what others are doing and have done to solve problems builds creativity, enhanced regulatory compliance, and communal experiences.  The EHS Directors’ Conference Calls began as an administrative function at the state level, but due to funding cuts and lack of a champion, nearly died before Portland State resurrected it.  Now there are 17 members, representing 14 institutions of higher education, across Oregon and Southwest Washington. 

Learning Objectives:

• History of the NW EHS Conference Call Program
• Benefits of open discussions with other colleagues
• How others can do a similar program

About the presenter
Scott Jaqua began his career as a radiation and chemistry technician (ELT) on a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine.  In 2001, after leaving the Navy, he spent 10 years working at OHSU as a Senior Health Physicist in the Environmental Health and Radiation Safety Department. Scott started at Portland State University in 2012 and has helped transform the laboratory and research safety programs.

Engaging Department Administrative Staff in Supporting Lab Safety
Presented by Alex Hagen, Lab Safety Specialist, EH&S, University of Washington

Department administrators at the University of Washington (UW) are the personnel who assist with o-boarding new principal investigators (PIs), purchasing equipment, addressing safety concerns, and clearing out old research spaces. There are approximately 1000 research groups at UW that are spread out among 80 different departments. Informing department administrators of what is expected of PIs and what it means to be in compliance at a university, state, and federal level is valuable for the entire research community on our campus. UW Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) provides this information to our administrators through a Laboratory Safety & Compliance training tailored specifically for them. This training along with tools to promote lab safety practices has increased administrators’ engagement with EH&S and strengthened the lab safety culture on our campus.

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate the ways their own institution’s administrative staff connects to the research community
• Think of what information is important for administrators to know about when it comes to lab safety and compliance
• What tools they can use to connect administrators to supporting lab safety culture on their campus

About the presenter
Prior to her work for the University of Washington’s Environmental Health & Safety department, Alex Hagen was a research scientist in UW’s Biochemistry Department for 18 years. Her work has been published in Development, Cell Cycle, and Nature. Currently, Alex is a Lab Safety Specialist for EH&S. She conducts safety inspections and consultation visits for research and teaching labs at UW’s campuses and off-site locations, and assists them with safety barrier identification, best practice recommendations, and referral work. She also helps develop and conduct trainings for UW’s faculty, research staff, and students.

Sponsor Presentations

Enhancing Campus Safety with CampusOptics
Presented by Brandon Phipps, CampusOptics Inc.

Join us to learn how institutions are leveraging CampusOptics to enhance collaboration across the campus safety ecosystem, while streamlining a wide array of safety processes including inspections, issue remediation, permitting, incident tracking, drill scheduling and emergency planning. We hope you are able to attend!

Converting EHS Data to Actionable Insights
Presented by Greg Kwolek, Safety Stratus

There’s no industry that couldn’t be improved by actionable insights, and over time, every industry will be. However, insight by itself does not necessarily translate into action. Actionable insight remains the goal, and we often overestimate how easy it is to find the real insights and do the right things with it. Join us for this session where we discuss turning health and safety data from your monitoring and evaluation processes into valuable, actionable insights.

Four Stories that Highlight the Power of Collaboration
Presented by Jonathan Klane, BioRaft

Join BioRAFT for fun collaboration stories! We’ve curated and are happy to share them with you. Each story is true, independent of the others, and is a puzzle. We’ve got too many to fit them all in, so vote in our poll to help decide which ones we share.

Reducing Emissions of on Campus Diesel Powered Generators
Presented by Bill Collins, Rypos

Rypos manufactures diesel particulate filters (DPF) designed to primarily reduce particulate matter (PM), a known carcinogen and other pollutants emitted from diesel generators. The filters are CARB (California Air Resource Board) verified meaning PM reduction is 85% or greater. While DPF’s are installed on many California campuses due local and state air regulations, their use on campuses around the country is increasing. The need to reduce smoke, odor and emissions from entering a sensitive receptor (window, air vent, etc.) due to the placement of the generator or the result of a wind study, has increased interest in filtering diesel generators. This presentation will focus on DPF types, active and passive, and application considerations.

INNOVATION AWARDS

Recognize higher education institutions of each constituent type (community colleges, comprehensive and doctoral institutions, research universities, and small institutions) in three areas of business and financial administration: process improvement, resource enhancement, and safety culture

MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS AWARDS

Recognize campuses that have implemented comprehensive marketing and communications programs, campaigns, or single media initiatives to promote EHS to their communities

CSHEMA LABORATORY SAFETY WEEK AWARDS

Seek to honor the efforts of higher education institutions in promoting CSHEMA’s laboratory safety week through marketing and engagement initiatives. Awards will be provided for each EHS department size (small, medium and large).

The CSHEMA Academy Courses offer four-hour online courses that allow you to expand your skills and education around a certain topic and showcase a commitment your professional advancement.

Through the academy, you will attend four separate one-hour online learning sessions OR 2 separate two-hour learnings sessions during a one- to two-week period. Content experts will lead you through the course, with each section expanding upon the knowledge given previously. It is important that you are able to attend each section of the course.

Upcoming Academy Courses 

Check back soon for more opportunities to learn with CSHEMA.

Previous Academy Courses

Embedded Safety Professionals 101

In this 101 course, experienced Embedded Safety Professionals (ESPs) will provide an overview of who they are, the services they provide to their institutions and the units they are embedded in, and how they help build and sustain a positive safety culture. ESPs are uniquely positioned to have an oversized impact on the safety culture of their institutions. They have close interactions with research groups, provide a link for central EHS offices to promote initiatives and disseminate information, and offer a familiar contact for safety questions. Over the course of 4 sessions attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the ESP role and how to use the methods of an ESP to be a more effective safety professional, regardless of your current role.

Industrial Hygiene 101

This online course is designed to provide an overview of the foundations of industrial hygiene and is recommended for those new to the profession. You will learn about occupational exposure limits, routes of exposure, and applicable regulations, as well as air sampling, respiratory protection, and noise evaluations. You will also receive a brief introduction to indoor air quality.

Lab Safety 101

The course was designed to cover topics including soft skills that are vital to creating positive lasting relationships with researchers, strategies for dealing with complicated interactions, hazard identification in the lab, and a quick overview of risk assessment methods that can be used to mitigate the identified hazards.

Safety Culture 101

This course is designed as an introductory survey of safety culture across the academic landscape, primarily rooted in examples, stories, and resources. This course will cover WHAT strategies are being used, WHO are key stakeholders, HOW do we measure success, and WHERE are valuable resources for continuous improvement. Through the duration of the course, those enrolled will complete a Safety Culture Learner’s Guide that will directly help each attendee prepare to affect safety culture at their own institution.