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 will be a virtual meeting on Friday, August 15, 2025.
Information provided included items such as the ACS DivCHED Meeting Conduct Policy, the upcoming need for new committee members and liaisons to the Division of Chemical Health and Safety, and AACT. Committee members were updated on the results of the DivCHED Focus Group held at the 2024 BCCE and how that has informed our progress on creating a new professional development workshop developed by the ACS Office of Safety Programs in conjunction with our committee, CHAS, and CCS leadership members. The professional development workshop, Developing Instructional Safety Strategies in Undergraduate Chemistry Labs, was presented at the Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting (MARM) on May 30, 2025. There were 20 participants at the workshop and was enthusiastically received.
In addition to this workshop, several committee members have assisted in the field-testing of Finster and Hill’s 3rd edition of Laboratory Safety for Chemistry Students (LSCS). This book has been converted to an e-Book by the ACS and is available at no cost to chemical educators and students. The launch of this textbook took place during the Spring ACS Meeting.
A feature of the new safety text is the incorporation of RAMP Analysis templates. These were prepared and field-tested for use with the text or as stand-alone resources for the teaching laboratory. These new resources will be made available through our committee’s webpage and other ACS safety portals. The forms are going to be revised to make them easier to be used by students as they learn the RAMP processes.
The professional development workshop for faculty, Developing Instructional Safety Strategies in Undergraduate Chemistry Labs, will be undergoing revision based on the assessment of the first offering of this workshop at MARM. The Safety Committee will be responsible for the revision of this workshop and ensuring that it is being offered on a regular basis at ACS meetings. We are also planning on developing on on-line version of the workshop as well. The workshop will also be revised by the 2YC3 Safety Committee for use with their membership. Our goal is to train other committee members and interested DivCHED members to become presenters of this workshop so that it may be offered at local, regional and BCCE meetings.
There are several additional issues the committee hopes to address in the near future:
- updates of division and ACS education safety policies to reflect the inclusion of RAMP principles
- creation of a network of division members interested in safety discussions - with the aid of the ACS Office of Safety Programs
- review of safety statement requirements in J Chem Ed and other ACS texts and journals
- preparation of new page(s) for the committee website
- usage of and possible revision of the Exam Institute Safety Exam to reflect new and recent ACS safety resources for education
- prepare a budget request for future years to provide workshop presenters with reimbursement for travel and per diem
- develop joint safety programming with CCS and DCHAS at ACS meetings
The committee welcomes any additional suggestions for items that need to be addressed by our committee membership.
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 extremely indebted to Marta Gmurczyk and Rachel Bocwinski of the ACS Office of Safety Programs for all their support and who help 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.
However, we are working on future budget requests to provide support to workshop leaders including travel and per diem.