CSUSM Wins Awards for Lab Coat Checkout Program
The Safety, Health & Sustainability (SHS) department at Cal State San Marcos has been recognized by a national organization for its program that allows students to borrow lab coats for academic use.
The Student Lab Coat Checkout Program was honored last weekend in Austin, Texas at the annual conference of the Campus Safety, Health and Environmental Management Association (CSHEMA). The program received three CSHEMA Innovation Awards.
Launched last spring, the lab coat program is a collaboration among SHS, the University Library and the chemistry and biochemistry department. Currently enrolled CSUSM students can borrow coats from the library for free for up to 16 weeks, with the items available on a first-come, first-served basis. The program served 241 students last semester.
Marissa Acosta, Vanessa Rivera and Victor Franco Bolanos from SHS worked with three employees in the library’s User Services department – Alysa Hernandez, Kelly Ann Sam and Leslie Hovland – to make the partnership a success.
Acosta said the program was created to address a barrier to equitable laboratory safety: access to proper personal protective equipment (PPE), specifically lab coats.
“Before the program, some students faced financial challenges when purchasing a lab coat,” said Acosta, who received the awards in person on June 19. “This inequity directly affected student readiness for laboratory participation and created preventable obstacles to maintaining a consistent and accessible culture of safety.”
Based in Wisconsin, CSHEMA is the pre-eminent leadership organization representing the environmental health and safety (EHS) profession in campus environments.
Media Contact
Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist
bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306