By TRENT WELLS
Campus Safety, Health and Environmental Management talked about solutions to safety problems in its annual meeting last week at the University of Utah.
“The purpose of the conference is to talk about what happened last year, have workshops on safety, talk about lab safety and so forth,” said Doug Walters, safety trainer in the Risk Management and Safety Office at BYU.
The safety conference gives universities a chance to explain programs they’ve implemented and lecture on problems and successes they’ve had. The annual meeting attracted about 200 professors and safety trainers from universities around the nation.
Among those professors was Barbara Hinshaw, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at BYU.
“The conference gives you the opportunity to talk to other universities and discuss solutions to their problems and yours,” Hinshaw said.
According to Hinshaw, BYU has an exceptionally clean track record for safety.
“Most problems arise when students fail to follow safety procedures, like not wearing lab goggles,” Hinshaw said.
Students in chemistry classes are trained before handling any chemicals or hazardous material, Hinshaw said.
Hinshaw, who is also the student and faculty safety officer, is responsible for training both students and faculty in chemical safety procedures. At the beginning of every Fall Semester and Winter Semester, Hinshaw holds training orientations for students who will be lab assistants. Along with this safety precaution, all students who major in chemistry must take Chemistry 501, a class on chemical safety, Hinshaw said.
The CSHEMA safety conference helps universities like BYU keep their chemistry labs safe.
“It gives you the chance to listen to papers, network with other people and other professors from different universities, get ideas, find solutions to problems and help others to solve problems,” Hinshaw said.
The conference wasn’t just for chemistry professors however; it deals with any type of safety problems that you can find on campus, Walters said. For example, professors from Yale University and Stanford University both gave lectures on programs for waste management.
