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UT Safety Experts
Share Training Academy
with California Peers
Safety experts from the Southwest Center for Occupational and Environmental Health at The University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston headed west to teach a unique safety training academy to health and safety staff in the University of California System.
The course was presented for the first time outside its home state, March 28-April 1, to about 40 professionals on the campus of the University of California, Irvine.
“This course is the only one of its kind in the country,” said Robert Emery, Dr.P.H., associate professor of occupational health at the UT School of Public Health. “The classes provide attendees with a broad understanding of health and safety issues unique to universities.”
The course includes training modules essential to environmental health and safety staff, such as fire, chemical and radiation safety. Safety experts also explore chemical hazards in the laboratory, understanding the needs of the faculty, common ergonomic problems and solutions, managing indoor air quality concerns, security basics, and effectively communicating health and safety information through mass media.
“We teach the UC staff how to put systems in place that demonstrate how their health and safety programs serve to further teaching, research and service missions of their institutions,” said Emery, who also is assistant vice president for Safety, Health, Environment and Risk Management for The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. “The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Safety expert Bruce Brown from the UT Health Science Center joined Emery to teach the weeklong academy. Also, Paul Pousson from the UT System Office of Risk Management provided a statewide perspective on addressing insurance basics for colleges and universities.
Joe S. Adams, occupational and environmental health and safety coordinator for the UC System, said Emery’s course will be used as a training template to customize their own occupational and environmental health and safety academy with future offerings to be offered at other UC campuses.
The UC System includes more than 201,000 students and 160,000 employees on nine campuses, with a tenth scheduled to open in Merced in 2005.
By David R. Bates, Public Affairs