Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Safety Article
Safety Article
Safety Article
Laboratories
Kathryn A. McGarry,
Katie R. Hurley,
Kelly A. Volp,
Ian M. Hill,
Brian A. Merritt,
Katie L. Peterson,
P. Alex Rudd,
Nicholas C. Erickson,
Lori A. Seiler,
Pankaj Gupta,
Frank S. Bates,
JST ACTIVITIES
Table 1 provides a list of JST activities performed during its
rst year, with indications of the CARE category they address.
Several activities had notable impact. Starting in November
2012, JST members were expected to participate in house-
keeping tours of each active experimental laboratory in CHEM
and CEMS. These tours addressed two goals: (1) examine
housekeeping issues not under the purview of regulatory
agencies and (2) expose LSOs to safety concerns and practices
in dierent research groups. Overall, 98% of 52 LSOs
participated in these tours, evaluating a total of 51 group
laboratory spaces in three-person teams. After each tour, the
three-person audit team sent a short report to the principal
investigator and LSO of the examined laboratory. JST members
have commented that the experience promoted accountability,
generated discussion within research groups, and helped LSOs
to be more aware of safety issues in their laboratory spaces. In
response to comments generated from a follow-up survey of the
tour procedures, the JST held a tour-training seminar to
establish standard guidelines for future semiannual tours.
Another notably impactful activity involved improving the
level of communication and discussion of safety in the CHEM
and CEMS community. The JST developed unique posters
with information about proper PPE and guidelines for a safer
lab and placed them throughout the department buildings
(Figure 2). In addition, researchers now receive safety updates
in a variety of forms, including safety notes in weekly
departmental e-mail newsletters and safety moments
presented at the beginning of group meetings and seminars
(Figure 3). Past safety moments and other relevant safety
information have been compiled on the JST Web site.
7
The
safety moments are particularly eective in promoting frequent
and open communication about safety issues, a conclusion
supported by general observations and survey ndings; 62% of
Figure 1. The four areas identied as fundamental to improving the
safety culture at UM.
Journal of Chemical Education Commentary
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed400305e | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 14141417 1415
researchers agreed that they are helping to improve the culture
of safety.
In another innovative activity, the JST introduced a cleanup
event that involved a week-long eort to properly identify and
dispose of unknown waste that had accumulated in laboratory
spaces. Ordinarily, unknown waste must be tested and
manifested by DEHS sta, costing $30 per sample
8
and
valuable time. For this week only, DEHS sta held a general
waste-handling seminar and a hands-on workshop to teach
LSOs how to test and manifest unknown hazardous waste. By
handling and testing the waste themselves, LSOs identied,
tested, and disposed of 321 unknowns of varying volume at no
charge to the research groups, totaling a combined savings of
$4500 and weeks of DEHS sta work. The JST plans a second
cleanup week to dispose of old or unused lab equipment and
electronics. The signicant decrease in laboratory clutter
resulting from these eorts represents yet another improve-
ment in the safety environment in CHEM and CEMS.
Finally, the JST addressed the need to better dene the roles
and responsibilities of an LSO by organizing a training
workshop, which was attended by 98% of 52 active LSOs.
The participants were provided with comprehensive informa-
tion on LSO duties, training documentation and records, safe
operating procedures development, safety signage templates,
and other safety resources developed by the JST Education and
Resources Committee.
9
Overall, this workshop claried the
duties of an LSO, provided the necessary resources for an LSO
to accomplish their duties, and established a protocol for LSOs
to maintain organized records.
Each task proposed by the JST is approached using a four-
step process: (1) dene the goal; (2) assess the attitude of the
community; (3) provide resources to facilitate change; and (4)
implement the change in phases. Upon identifying a target for
improvement, a plan was developed that incorporated the
suggestions and concerns of the research community. Once a
plan was established and criteria for success were determined,
an appropriate timeline was chosen and resources were
allocated as appropriate to accomplish the desired outcome.
Some example resources include a standardized lab-signage
template that was distributed to all LSOs, the LSO guidebook
that dened the role of an LSO, and an online collection of
safety moments that foster communication about safety issues.
It is important to note that most of the developed resources are
electronic or are paper products (posters, LSO binder, etc.)
that are relatively inexpensive. Lastly, we recognize that
Table 1. Summary of First-Year Activities of the JST
Action Description CARE Category
Time Frame for
Implementation
Identify 10 guidelines for a
safer lab
Document summarizing most important aspects of lab safety Awareness First six months of
initiative
Kick-o event Highly attended event introduced the JST and goals to constituents Awareness First six months of
initiative
Standard lab signage Templates designed and distributed to display hazards and contact information
for each lab space
Awareness,
compliance
First six months of
initiative
JST Web site (www.jst.umn.
edu)
Web site designed with links, information, and JST content Resources,
education
First nine months of
initiative
Lab tours Tours led to examine lab housekeeping and raise safety concerns to laboratory
safety ocers
Compliance First nine months of
initiative
Safety moments, posters,
notes
Communication about safety issues implemented at seminars, in posters, and in
newsletters
Awareness First six months of
initiative
Cleanup week Event organized to deal with hazardous waste and to clean laboratories Resources First nine months of
initiative
LSO training Workshop run to teach LSOs about responsibilities and provide resources Education First nine months of
initiative
Figure 2. Illustrative poster developed by the JST for use in CHEM
and CEMS buildings.
Figure 3. Illustrative safety moment slide used in presentations at the
beginning of departmental seminars and group meetings.
Journal of Chemical Education Commentary
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed400305e | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 14141417 1416
changing a culture is an iterative process: gradual change
implemented in phases has been valuable in maintaining the
support of the research community at large. The above four-
step process was used for each of the previously described
activities.
We emphasize that the JST activities augmented the already
in-place protocols of the departmental safety committees and
were specically designed to address the need for an improved
safety culture, rather than particular regulatory compliance
requirements. Thus, for example, the JST tours provided
additional recommendations for research groups that com-
plemented the specic, legally binding inspection reports
generated after inspections performed by the departmental
safety committees, which comprise faculty, department sta,
and DEHS sta members. The additional level of participation
by graduate student and postdoctoral members of the JST in
providing safety resources, training, and communication has
positively aected safety attitudes across CHEM and CEMS.
This conclusion was drawn from the results of surveys,
observed compliance with safety protocols, enthusiastic
presentation of safety moments by faculty seminar hosts at
departmental seminars, and high attendance at JST events.
Opening the JST membership to the full body of graduate and
postdoctoral researchers has been met with an impressive level
of support; the current JST member list includes more than 80
people. Equally noteworthy, the faculty research advisors have
been overwhelmingly accepting of the safety initiative; when
graduate students, postdoctoral associates, and faculty were
surveyed in November 2012, 31% agreed and 51% strongly
agreed that their advisor promotes or is supportive of
incorporating safety into research activities. This distribution
remained steady in the May 2013 survey (28% agreed and 54%
strongly agreed). This level of support (82%) is perceived as a
positive response, but may not reect the sentiments of
nonrespondents and still shows room for improvement as the
JST initiative continues into its second year.
CONCLUSIONS
Although institutional changes often originate in directives from
leaders at industrial or academic institutions, we have found our
student-empowered approach to be a viable additional method
for improving the culture of safety. Our approach began with
the leaders of the departments of CHEM and CEMS at UM
commissioning the community of LSOs, the individuals who
are working daily in the laboratories, with the task of improving
the safety culture. The collaboration between Dow and UM
allowed JST members to learn from a company with a great
safety record and to adopt and modify aspects of the Dow
safety culture to t the university setting. Recognizing that
measuring changes in the culture of safety is dicult and that
such changes are likely to be gradual, we nonetheless are
convinced based on our preliminary results that the JST model
is contributing to signicant improvements in safety attitudes,
practices, and training of the researchers and faculty in the two
departments. Indeed, both JST members and outside
supporters have requested that the program grow in breadth
and depth, a key challenge being to build upon the initial
momentum of the program as it matures. In addition, UM
administrators have encouraged the group to branch out and
start similar movements in other departments in the College of
Science and Engineering. Perhaps the most important lesson
learned is that the energy and enthusiasm of the JST members
has been a signicant driver of change. It is evident that this
bottom-up approach can be an eective complement to
eorts driven by faculty and administrators aimed at improving
the culture and practice of safety in academic laboratories.
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
*S Supporting Information
Community surveys, LSO surveys, 13 recommendations. This
material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail: wtolman@umn.edu.
Notes
The authors declare no competing nancial interest.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank all the laboratory safety ocers and members who
comprise the Joint Safety Team and Manish Sharma and Erich
Molitor from Dow Chemical Company for their helpful
contributions.
REFERENCES
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(5) The survey contained 15 questions in which respondents were
asked to express their own perceptions on safety practices and to rate
their organizations communication and implementation of safety-
related issues. Demographic information was also requested. A total of
207 responses (31%) were received out of a possible 658, with three-
quarters of the respondents being graduate students and the majority
of the rest being faculty.
(6) Each department committed $2,500 to the Joint Safety Team.
(7) The JST Web site can be found at www.jst.umn.edu (accessed
Sep 2013).
(8) The cost of waste manifestation is based on the internal
management of waste by DEHS at the University of Minnesota.
(9) Complete contents of the LSO guidebook are available at www.
jst.umn.edu (accessed Sep 2013).
Journal of Chemical Education Commentary
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed400305e | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 14141417 1417