Enhancing Health and Safety Education in Engineering and Business Schools Opportunities for the Mining Sector
Vic Pakalnis, MIRARCO Mining Innovation; Anthony Pasteris, Minerva Canada Safety Management Education Inc.
Minerva Canada Safety Management Education Inc. is a not-for-profit volunteer organization whose mission is to enhance Health and Safety (H&S) education in Canadian Engineering and Business Schools. Our educational programs and activities promote the support and development of Case Studies, Teaching Modules, Learning Forums and sponsorship of engineering and business student awards and projects that have involved over 50 Canadian Universities, Colleges, over 2000 post secondary professors and 1400 students. Since 2004, we have conducted 36 Learning Forums for engineering, business professors to share leading practices with them for teaching H&S in the classroom and have developed 32 case studies for use in their courses. In 2012, Minerva initiated the development of 24 H&S Teaching Modules with participation from 13 universities and 17 Minerva sponsoring organizations used as subject matter experts. In 2018, Minerva initiated its most ambitious undertaking of developing an online certificate program in H&S for engineering students. Significant opportunities exist for mining companies to become partners with Minerva with its new online certificate program as it can benefit not only students but also employee training programs. The Minerva Canada presentation at the 2019 CIM Conference will identify the opportunities Minerva sees for the mining industry to take a worldwide leadership role in advancing post-secondary education and becoming more involved to address current H&S teaching gaps within post secondary academia. This leadership role is very important as the mining sector relies on Business and Engineering programs to provide the best graduates and business leaders in the mining industry.
