Health & Safety
The University of Alaska Southeast recognizing the need to maintain a safe and healthy work and learning experience for our students, faculty, staff and visitors created the Office of Health and Safety in 2001.
The effort to assure health and safety, for ourselves and the environment, is a long term ongoing commitment on the part of the University. My task, as Health and Safety Manager, is to assist each of you in identifying and addressing any areas within your program or facility that do not meet prudent or nationally recognized standards of good practice.
Vision
The vision of the Office of Health and Safety for the University of Alaska Southeast is to enhance the research and educational process by fully integrating a continuous improvement of health, safety and environmental performance into our culture, our work practices and all campus activities.
Mission
The mission of the Office of Health and Safety at the University of Alaska Southeast is to provide leadership and outstanding service so that the risk of injury, illness, environmental damage and losses to the campus community and its neighbors is continuously reduced.
UAS Emergency Alert System
Information about how to activate the UAS Emergency Alert System can be found on our website contained in a separate PDF document.
Chemical Hygiene Plan
The purpose of this plan is to meet the basic regulatory requirements of the OSHA Laboratory Standard for the development of a Chemical Hygiene Plan and to provide laboratories with useful recommendations that can help achieve compliance with the intent of the OSHA Lab Standard.
UAS Volunteers
18 & Older:
- Review the Guidelines on Using Volunteer Services
- Provide Information to be Given to UA Volunteers to your volunteer
- Fill out a Volunteer Qualification Checklist, then send to the following for approval if required:
- Dean/Director - always required
- Risk Management - required if Questions 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 on page 2 of the form are 'yes'
- Human Resources - if Question 4 on page 2 of the form is 'yes'
- Keep a copy of the Volunteer Qualification Checklist on file in hard copy for 3 years, and in electronic format for an additional 4 years.
Minors:
Contact UAS Health and Safety Office 796-6077 or UAS Human Resources 796-6273 for information and additional requirements.
FAQs
Yes, each volunteer should have an accompanying checklist. If you have 10-20 volunteers with the same answers, doing the same work, with the same UAS supervisor; then you can fill out one checklist and send a list of all the volunteers' names and addresses that go with that checklist.
This checklist is the initial step to provide the legal worker's compensation coverage that volunteers would be afforded while doing work for the university.
This is a common mistake. A collaborator is someone who works for another organization or institution, or is self-employed who is working or collaborating with UAS in order for both parties to benefit in some way. Typically guest speakers or key note speakers are not volunteers.
Another example would be a sponsor of a program, who works for another organization, who is volunteering their time on behalf of their company, they are a collaborator.
You do not fill out a volunteer checklist for collaborators.
No. Volunteers cannot be supervised by someone they are related to or a cohabiting couple supervising one another. Volunteers must follow the policies that are required of employees with regard to supervision.
The checklist requires that volunteers be under the direct supervision of a university employee. Volunteers should be supervised in order to be sure that they are acting on behalf of the university at all times that they are volunteering for the university. They should be held to the same standard as an employee would be.
In order to be sure that the volunteer is representing the university's interests, direct supervision of their work is required.
No. To have a volunteer drive on behalf of the university you must send in a written request for a waiver. Contact the risk manager for additional requirements.
Experience has shown that there are many areas of shared responsibilities between the academic programs and the departments that support them such as IT, Facilities and Egan Library. Risk management is one of those shared responsibilities. The purpose of this memo is to clarify the risk management roles and responsibilities of the academic departments and those of Facilities Services and the Health and Safety Office. This memo will show existing UA guidance documents that address academic risk management followed by a discussion of the risk management roles and responsibilities that are shared with UAS Facilities Services and Health and Safety Office.
There are four UA guidance documents that speak to risk management roles and responsibilities within UA.
UA Board of Regents Regulations,Chapter 05.09 - Risk Management and Environmental Health and Safety.
R05.09.040. Roles and Responsibilities.
D. Campus supervisors, faculty, principal investigators, first line supervisors, and all other persons designated responsibility for managing or supervising students and/or employees:
1. Supervisors are responsible for compliance with legal and risk management and environmental health and safety program requirements.
2. Supervisors are responsible for assessing the potential hazards associated with the activities of the participants in the programs and operations under their authority, reducing or eliminating identified hazards, communicating hazards and protective measures to the participants, and seeking technical assistance for these tasks from risk management and environmental health and safety as needed.
3. Supervisors are responsible for ensuring that participants in their programs and operations are adequately trained and able to perform their tasks safely.
4. Supervisors are responsible for facilitating hazard reviews, inspections and/or audits of their programs and operations as well as taking prompt action when unsafe or non-compliant acts or conditions are discovered or reported to them.
5. Supervisors must report unsafe acts or conditions, non-compliance, injuries, or incidents to the appropriate internal department.
6. Report immediately to a RM/EHS office any occurrence resulting in a loss of life or requiring the hospitalization of one or more people; any declared disaster at any campus or facility; or any situation requiring the implementation of either a campus or university emergency operations plan and use of public response agencies.
7. Report to a RM/EHS office within eight (8) hours all claims and lawsuits; property damage or loss expected to result in a claim over $10,000; and any environmental release that is reportable to a federal, state or local regulatory agency.
8. Report to a RM/EHS office within 24 hours all injuries to third parties (anyone who is not an employee); employee injuries requiring a doctor visit or time off work; all motor vehicle accidents involving the university and a third party; any other situation that may give rise to an adverse claim against the university; and or, any official visit by a regulatory agency that involves either a compliance audit or a documented Notice of Violation from that agency.
UA Board of Regents Regulations,Chapter 05.09 - Risk Management and Environmental Health and Safety.
R05.09.040. Roles and Responsibilities.
E. Faculty, Staff, and Students
1. Participate in training programs.
2. Promptly report unsafe conditions, environmental health hazards, as well as injuries and illnesses to the cognizant supervisor or program director.
3. Give due consideration to personal safety and the safety of others.
4. Adhere to applicable laws and risk management and environmental health and safety program requirements.
5. Understand that disregard of legal or risk management and environmental health and safety requirements can result in disciplinary action.
6. Actively promote safety and loss prevention in all activities.
Faculty Handbook for Academic Year 2018-2019. Effective July 1, 2018
Chapter 4: INSTRUCTIONAL AND ADVISING RESPONSIBILITIES
Care in Classrooms
Various court opinions provide guidance about the standard of care that may be expected of a teacher in a classroom or laboratory, on a field trip, or in a gymnasium where there is a possibility of danger:
1. The instructor has the duty to instruct and to warn students of any known dangers present in a classroom situation.
2. The instructor has the duty to instruct students in matters that will protect them from these dangers whether the dangers would arise from equipment, devices, machines, or other causes. Failure to warn students of such dangers or to instruct them in means of avoiding such dangers is negligence.
3. In determining whether or not the instructor exercised ordinary care, a jury may weigh and consider the age, intelligence, and experience of students in the class.
4. The jury may weigh and consider the responsibilities that have been placed upon the instructor by his employment, such as the curriculum required to be carried out, the daily schedules, the number of students assigned to the class, the arrangement of the classroom, and the equipment devices or other objects contained within the classroom.
Instructional responsibilities are detailed in the UNAC faculty collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
UA Board of Regents Regulations,Chapter 05.09 - Risk Management and Environmental Health and Safety.
R05.09.040. Roles and Responsibilities.
C. Campus Offices of Environmental Health and Safety & Risk Management
1. Develop and assist in the implementation of programs for safe and healthy work practices.
2. Provide staff support to safety and other relevant campus committees.
3. Provide risk management and environmental health and safety training and materials.
4. Operate hazardous waste disposal services.
5. Monitor compliance with risk management and environmental health and safety programs.
6. Provide guidance and technical assistance to supervisors and managers in identifying and evaluating risks and correcting hazards.
7. Maintain operational and specialty material licenses, permits and registrations of devices (x-ray, etc.).
8. Stop any activity that presents an unreasonable health and safety risk to employees, students, visitors or the environment.
9. Report immediately to the Statewide Office of Risk Management any occurrence resulting in a loss of life or requiring the hospitalization of one or more people; any declared disaster at any campus or facility; or any situation requiring the implementation of either a campus or university emergency operations plan and use of public response agencies.
10. Report to the Statewide Office of Risk Management within eight (8) hours all claims and lawsuits; property damage or loss expected to result in a claim over $10,000; and any environmental release that is reportable to a federal, state or local regulatory agency.
11. Report to the Statewide Office of Risk Management within 24 hours all injuries to third parties (anyone who is not an employee); employee injuries requiring a doctor visit or time off work; all motor vehicle accidents involving the university and a third party; any other situation that may give rise to an adverse claim against the university; and or, any official visit by a regulatory agency that involves either a compliance audit or a documented Notice of Violation from that agency.