Eastman is collaborating with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and its Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) on a safety education initiative designed to transform the curriculum of undergraduate chemical engineering students, according to the company. Eastman's support of AIChE's Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative reinforces its established partnership with AIChE. The CCPS-led initiative seeks to ensure that all chemical engineering graduates possess a working knowledge of process safety principles — an area of instruction currently underdeveloped in most university undergraduate chemical engineering curricula.
The Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative is a major global effort and a core priority of the AIChE Foundation's "Doing a World of Good" campaign, which focuses on projects that bring chemical engineering expertise to bear for the good of society.
In explaining the origins of the Undergraduate Process Safety Learning Initiative, AIChE executive director June Wispelwey Wispelwey notes that, despite the progress companies and engineers have made in process safety, corporate leaders and engineers say that they need young engineers who are better trained in process safety when they enter the workforce. Additionally, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology recently enacted standards that require process safety to be a part of the chemical engineering curriculum. Universities, however, have not yet found a way to develop a standardized curriculum to fulfill the new requirement.
"That needed training is why CCPS, its industry member companies and AIChE created this initiative and made it part of our 'Doing a World of Good' campaign," says Wispelwey.
For more information, visit: www.aiche.org
