Safety Committee Vision Statement: Education that embeds accurate chemical safety instruction at all educational levels.
Safety Committee Mission Statement: To provide resources and strategies to chemical and science educators in order to prepare chemists and others to function safely while using chemicals.
The committee meets for approximately 90 minutes in conjunction with each national ACS meeting. Our fall meeting was a virtual meeting on Sunday, August 13, 2023.
At the meeting, we reviewed some informational items such as the ACS DivCHED Meeting Conduct Policy and the upcoming need for new committee members. Committee members updated the group on various ACS Safety initiatives: the new CPT guidelines, the ACS Safety Office Envisioning Project (bringing together all of the offices and ACS safety committees/divisions to work on common visions/projects) and several other initiatives.
We discussed what session(s) might be appropriate for the spring 2023 meeting in Indianapolis -- perhaps something joint with the younger chemists group in CHED about careers in safety. Plans are in place for a workshop submission from the Envisioning Project and a Symposium at the 2024 BCCE meeting in Lexington, KY.
The projects for the survey and for re-organizing the CHED demonstrations document to use RAMP are still in process.
As the meeting wrapped up members were reminded to review the webpage and consider possible social media updates.
We are also working on a revision of the CHED demonstrations guide using RAMP guidelines. A revision of the committee webpage is also planned to reorganize access to resources and create a user-friendly interface for the division membership to make it easier to locate appropriate safety information, documents and courses.
The committee is also working to expand our committee to provide representation from AACT, 2YC3, Early Career Chemistry Education Scholars and others to expand our efforts to reach out to division membership to enhance safety programs and materials.
One of the outcomes of the Envisioning Project is the development of a in-person and/or virtual professional development workshop for the DivCHED Safety Committee focusing on developing educational materials to incorporate RAMP principles into courses throughout the curriculum, developing a culture of safety in our departments which would involve students, faculty and administration, and developing appropriate tools and resources to accomplish these goals. A focus group will be convened at the 2024 BCCE to review the progress of the committee working on the development of this workshop with the goal to present our first offering of the workshop in the fall of 2024. The Safety Committee will also be tasked on preparing an assessment/follow-up plan for the workshop and plan for future professional development opportunities.
Of great value to the committee are the cross-connections that several of our committee members have to the Committee on Chemical Safety (CCS) and to Division of Chemical Health And Safety (DivCHAS). We are also indebted to Marta Gmurczyk who helps make connections with and provide information about various ACS safety-focused projects. We are working to formalize relationships with appropriate subcommittees of the Committee on Chemical Safety and the Division of Chemical Health and Safety.