Thanks to Dominic Cooper, a safety professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., we have some insight about how students see future careers in workplace safety. There's been concern in recent years about declining enrollment in college safety degree programs, and students giving safety the cold shoulder. Cooper asked his students what future they see for the field.
The safety profession's future is very bright, post 9/11, according to Cooper's students. "Most see the profession transitioning from its current 'technical' role to a high-powered managerial role, with others saying both managerial and technical aspects are important," he says.