Since April 2013, there have been 41 fatalities and greater than 237 injuries reported in 21 different incidents investigated by the Chemical Safety Board [1]. Chemical process safety education is needed to reduce future incidents. To encourage colleges and universities to incorporate process safety into their curricula, ABET incorporated a general engineering student outcome which states that students should have “an ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors” [2].
Incorporating the necessary ABET student outcome change in higher education is challenging without effective strategies. Henderson et al. surveyed the education literature, discussing strategies for creating change, and proposed a model for creating effective change in higher education. The proposed model contains four different strategies which can be used independently or together to create change in higher education. These strategies are (1) policy, (2) shared vision, (3) curriculum and pedagogy, and (4) reflective teachers [3].
At the 2017 ASEE Chemical Engineering Summer School, five different faculty from five universities, which includes a combination of public and private universities with both research and/or teaching focuses, identified a shared vision of incorporating chemical process safety into the chemical engineering unit operations course. In the past year, using reflective practices, they surveyed their respective curricula using the eight [ABET] Chemical Process Safety learning outcomes recommended by Safety and Chemical Engineering Education (SAChE) to determine which outcomes they are currently teaching in unit operations [4]. This study found a need for familiarizing students “with the major regulations that impact the safety of chemical plants” [5]. Following the discussion at the 2018 ASEE Annual Conference, several more faculty indicated interest in this project.
Building on the previous study, this work-in-progress paper will survey the new institutions’ curricula. Then, utilizing the change model proposed by Henderson et al. and the SAChE Chemical Process Safety Learning Outcomes, the chemical process safety curricula changes and assessment criteria in the unit operations laboratory will be described. This includes describing how current resources in chemical process safety education, such as the AICHE faculty workshops, the Concept Warehouse, and CCPS publications, can be utilized.
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