Seattle University
PA-15: Workplace Health and Safety

The cornerstone of SU’s custom OHSMS is the Accident Prevention Program, which aims to reduce or eliminate hazards. Additional written safety programs in specific areas, including hazardous chemicals, waste management, electrical safety, confined spaces, hot work, thermal stress, and hearing conservation, support the general principles laid out in the Accident Prevention Program.

The University Safety Committee provides an overarching structure for receiving and reviewing safety concerns on campus and monitoring the implementation and efficacy of the Accident Prevention Program. Safety committees at the building or department level provide local and focused consideration and implementation of safety programs. Safety staff —the Academic Safety Officer and the Manager of EH&S— review campus spaces and building systems at least annually to identify areas of improvement.

All employees, including student employees, complete an online safety orientation when they are hired and receive task-specific safety training from their supervisors or departments. Additional safety training modules on a wide variety of topics are available through our in-house LMS and assigned as applicable.

Source for the numbers of recordable incidents of work-related injury or ill health: OSHA’s Form 300 data.

The department of Public Safety uses a Case Management system for all of SU's incident reports, including occupational injuries. The system provides reporting/documentation and tracking mechanism for incidents on campus. Accident and injury Incidents are reviewed for safety concerns by the University Safety Committee and by building or department safety committees, as applicable. Reports for occupational injuries are forwarded to HR who manages those claims.

-- IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING NUMBER PROVIDED ABOVE "FTE EQUIVALENT OF EMPLOYEES": This number is different from the "FTE Equivalent of Employees" in the "PRE-5 Academics and Demographics" credit in this STARS report. That number is: 1,358.0.

The reason for the difference is: As suggested in the STARS guidelines for this credit, we report on recordable incidents of work-related injury or ill health through OSHA. For OSHA reporting, students are included in the count whereas the FTE employees number in PRE-5 does not include students.

--NOTE REGARDING TIMEFRAME: Reported number of recordable incidents of work-related injury or ill health above is for calendar year 2022 (Jan – Dec 2022) following OSHA reporting.