$100,000 in Scholarships and Grants Announced for Occupational Safety Degrees

Formal announcement was made on September 11 of an unusual collection of scholarship and grant opportunities that is furnished annually by a professional organization in the occupational safety and health field, the American Society of Safety Engineers Foundation. These annual awards are supported by a variety of educational funds and trusts administered by the foundation. Among them are grants for continuing education, scholarships for specific careers and scholarship for specific schools and geographic regions.

The scholarships are available to students who are pursuing risk management degrees, ergonomics, environmental health or safety degrees, occupational health nursing degrees, industrial engineering degrees with a safety concentration, and occupational medicine. There are also grants available for safety professionals who want to pursue additional credentialing in the field through Certified Safety Professional courses offered by the ASSE or by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals.

There are several dozen scholarships available, many of them underwritten by regional organizations for students studying in a particular area. A review of the available grants and scholarships, along with academic requirements are available in this trade newsletter or on the ASSE Foundation website.

Many professionals in this field move from positions in businesses or industrial settings into consulting. Among the field of operations management consultants are specialists in the field of occupational safety. Many businesses with production lines or manufacturing facilities will go through annual safety audits both for the protection of employees and for the purpose of managing insurance costs. That is why risk management is an important part of this educational sector, and one of the categories included in the list of scholarship opportunities.

There are currently about one hundred thousand occupational health and safety technicians working in this country. That does not include the engineers, medical professionals and financial experts whose careers are also devoted to job-related health and safety. A large proportion of the professionals in the field work for state or federal agencies, an option that allows for both career advancement and attractive benefits packages.

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