(743b) Development of a Course to Address Safety in the Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Curricula at Mississippi State University

Safety is a very important issue for chemical engineers.  Feedback from the chemical engineering alumni as well as input from the advisory board of the Dave C. Swalm school of Chemical Engineering at Mississippi State University (MSU) indicated that safety should be taught at the undergraduate level.  As a result of this feedback an undergraduate course was developed and was initially offered as a technical elective in the Spring of 2009. This course has been offered annually and now is a required course as part of the chemical engineering degree requirement at MSU. 

Currently this course uses “Chemical Process Safety” by Daniel Crowl and Joseph Louvar, as the text book and covers many aspects of safety that an entry level chemical engineer will face as part of their first job.   Details of the course offering, the course evolution, as well as the impact on the students and entry level engineers will be presented.