Trent University has been on a campaign for the past couple of weeks to promote health and safety on campus.
The Risk Management office created a competition whereby “all members of the Trent community” can play his/her part in promoting, enacting and applying healthy and safe practices on Trent grounds. Whether as a team or as an individual, participants are encouraged to assess their surroundings, find a hazard and come up with a plan of mitigating the effects that such a hazard may have on those who are on campus. Entries are due by the February 15 and the competition offers several prizes, some of which include a red parking permit, $250 Gift Certificate for the Trent University Bookstore, and a Kobo eReader.
The Arthur wanted to derive a more complete understanding of the motivations that led to this campaign of sorts so we spoke to Bill Gibson, Occupational Health and Safety Officer at Trent University.
Arthur (A): What was the motive for creating a competition centred around health and safety on the Trent campus? Was it to encourage student involvement or to promote an overall
awareness of safety practices in general?
Bill Gibson (BG): Both. We are trying to promote overall awareness and encourage all members of the University to work together to improve safety on campus.
A: The competition encourages applicants to find a safety concern that exists on Trent
property, is the office thereby implicitly stating that there are weaknesses in the safety
infrastructure of the institution?
BG: No. It never hurts to raise awareness and try to find ways of improving safety. The goal is constant improvement.
A: To what extent are students and employees at Trent aware of the various steps that
should be taken to prevent and/or mitigate hazards on campus and what else can be done
to promote safety at Trent University?
BG: Basic safety training is provided to all University employees with additional training for hazards specific to various types of work. Students receive information from various sources including course instructors, housing, health services, and risk management, and through websites, e-mails, and posters. Information is also available on the web: www.trentu.ca/riskmanagement.
A: On a related note, are there adequate first aid kits stationed on campus? Our
office received a report of one individual having a hard time finding a mere band-aid.
BG: Over the past several years we have distributed over 200 first aid kits to various departments on campus and provide first aid supplies on request.
The movement is a step in the right direction. All of us as students, employees, and community members have a part to play in creating an environment in which we all feel safe when going about our daily business and it is always a good thing when administrators are able to facilitate direct involvement from students on matters such as these.
However, I would also argue that more needs to be done. The competition focuses on the three following categories:lab safety, office safety, and general safety. I’m currently trying to discern whether or not the issue of accessibility comes to play in a situation such as this. Some students have expressed concerns about the extent to which the Symons campus is (sufficiently) accessible for wheelchair-bound students. In this case, would an impediment to mobility be considered a hazard worth fixing?
