Inspection Requirements
The regulatory agency with jurisdiction for San Francisco, the Certified Unified Program Agency (CUPA), requires annual safety inspections of laboratories.
At SFSU, we divided lab inspections into 10 discrete categories of safety inspection questions.
EH&S student aides have been trained to conduct inspections of these individual categories.
Their training is defined and standardized by short student-produced tutorials that show what are safe and unsafe conditions to look for using the customized lab safety checklist.
Students document their inspection findings using the Risk & Safety Services' on-line safety inspection tool that EH&S customized for use at SFSU.
Student lab safety inspections are overseen and collated by the EH&S staff chemical hygiene officer, who also tracks inspection findings to closure.
CY 2024 Update
Several laboratory groups were inspected, but not all categories were completed. Sufficient student staff was not available to help complete these inspections. Chemistry labs were being packed up for the move to the new SEIC building and used as temporary storage. Lab classrooms and chemistry stockroom storage in the old Science building also had to move out while this building was being renovated.