As an educational institution, our primary function is to produce graduates that will meet the needs of the state of Texas and the nation. The graduate program, with an emphasis in occupational ergonomics and safety provides graduates trained to reduce injuries in the workplace. The best measure of the program's success is the high demand for our graduates. Currently the demand far exceeds the supply of ergonomics/safety graduates. The graduate programs in Industrial Engineering allow students to concentrate in ergonomics/safety but also require all students to have some exposure (currently 2 courses- 6 semester hours of credit) to the ergonomics/safety area. Therefore, in addition to students concentrating their graduate work in the ergonomics/safety area, the current program also provides ergonomics/safety training to many additional students, whose area of emphasis might not be ergonomics/safety. Recently some ergonomics/safety courses have been offered via distance education to off-campus students, further expanding training in the area. The majority of off-campus students are currently working full time, so ergonomics/safety training is likely having direct impacts in the workplace for those students. With increased educational costs, the program is seeking an increase in funding to support additional full-time students to help meet the demand for ergonomics/safety professionals in the region. With the impact of high starting salaries for BS graduates and competitive nature of graduate programs, students are demanding more financial support to enter and continue in a graduate program. We continue to update the course offerings in ergonomics/safety and try to deliver such courses to off-campus students whenever possible. The NIOSH Training Program support has helped produce ergonomics and safety graduates who are serving the needs of region and the nation. Graduates are highly sought and currently demand for such professionals exceeds the supply from our graduate program.
