Stronger leadership on safety needed at colleges

A spotlight has been focused on UCLA ever since a horrific lab accident in December 2008 caused the death of a research assistant. Most recently, a chemistry professor pleaded not guilty to three counts of willful violation of an occupational safety and health standard.

But while the case is important, it is the bigger picture of safety on college campuses that truly demands action. There have been several other campus deaths in the past two years caused by accidents that in other cases would have been under the jurisdiction of OSHA.

FDRsafety handled the investigation of another college student accidental death last year.  That event caused me to dig into the bigger picture.  Recent accidental deaths of students at several universities give rise to a question of how well physical hazards and risks are identified and controlled on college campuses.

In a nutshell, the picture is this:

• Students are not employees and are not under the jurisdiction of OSHA; hence injury and illness is not recorded
•  The 285-page document, “The Handbook for Campus Safety and Security Reporting,” released by the Dept of Education in February of 2011 is devoid of guidance for physical safety hazards other than fire.  It focuses on personal safety related to crime.
• There does not appear to be a central location for collecting data on student deaths related to accidents from physical hazards.
• Many schools seem to have a strong focus on chemical, biological, nuclear and other sophisticated types of hazards and risks.
• Some schools have a focus on sustainability, but the “social” aspect for student safety is absent at the level of top leadership.
• Many colleges have well staffed and competent ESH staffs that seem to be responsible for safety. ESH staffs rather than the Presidents of colleges and universities draft policies and mission statements.

Let’s focus on leadership in colleges taking an active role and infusing safety as a value among all professors, staff and students.  When that happens, efforts to identify risk associated with “high severity – low probability” exposures can help reduce the numbers of tragedies that we are experiencing.