Environment, Health, Safety & Sustainability

​​​​​​​​​​Environmental Compliance​

Professionals in this field ​​work with large companies to help them abide by environmental laws, regulations, standards, and other requirements such as site permits to operate. Environmental concerns and compliance activities are increasingly being aligned with corporate performance goals to increase profits and avoid conflicts, wasteful overlaps, and gaps. ​


What These Jobs Do: 

  • Managing compliance monitoring programs and schedules
  • Reviewing and adhering to permits
  • Pre-processing, performing calculations and validating the data for compliance with any alert or reporting levels
  • Generating routine compliance reports for authorities
  • Creation of environmental permits

Course Offerings 

In addition to the core ESH&S, you can take the following elective courses that are geared toward the practice of environmental compliance​. ​


Environmental Permit & Reporting (4 hrs) 

This course is an advanced application course which studies the preparation and analysis of air and water permits and the preparation of quarterly and annual reports, all of which are submitted to state and federal regulators. Students examine and complete various federal and state permit applications regulating air contaminant sources, surface water discharges, discharges to sanitary sewers, and storm-water discharges. The course also requires the study of annual generator hazardous waste reports, hazardous chemical inventories, toxic release inventories, and the requirements associated with accidental release reports under the Clean Water Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Responses Compensation and Liability Act, and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act. The course also studies the regulatory enforcement process associated with an entity's noncompliance with permits and reports, including the administrative and judicial processes, penalty calculations, and negotiations. 


Management of Human Capital (3 hrs) 

This is a course in human resources and it addresses the human resource function including compensation and benefits; human capital; leadership; performance evaluation; promotion; recruitment and selection; retention and turnover; strategic human resource management; succession planning; and training and development for all managers and human resource professionals.


Public Policy (3 hrs) 

This course provides a systematic study of public policy in selected areas with emphasis on roles of various participants, their contributions, and history. It includes an analysis of public policy-making in various social fields and its relationship to public budgeting with special emphasis on policy development, implementation, and review.


Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) Compliance & Enforcement (4 hrs) 

Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) Compliance and Enforcement identifies present day regulatory and enforcement initiatives that have been established as priorities by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The course studies the means by which these regulatory initiatives are promulgated and implemented through the rulemaking process, agency outreach, and site inspections conducted by OSHA compliance safety and health officers and federal and state EPA inspectors. In the event that noncompliance with a regulatory initiative is detected during an inspection or self-reporting, regulatory enforcement may be initiated. As such, the course also introduces and examines the potential administrative and judicial (civil and criminal) enforcement alternatives used by the agencies to achieve compliance and deter future noncompliance. Both OSHA and EPA penalty policies and settlement initiatives are introduced, discussed, and their application examined. Particular emphasis is placed upon (1) current and selected readings in environmental, safety and occupational health and (2) mastery of key environmental, health, and safety regulations.


Environmental Audits & Assessment (3 hrs) 

This is a comprehensive capstone environmental course that instructs students on approaches for conducting industrial operational compliance audits for all applicable air, water, and waste regulations as well as permitting and reporting requirements. Students also obtain a working knowledge of, and ability to conduct or direct, Phase I and Phase II environmental site assessments pursuant to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards. 


Train-the-Trainer (1.5 hrs) 

This elective course helps qualify individuals for workforce training roles. It describes the approaches of needs analysis, task analysis, and performance objectives that are used to design training; lesson plans, delivery and assessment techniques; and the validation and documentation of training programs. Instructional strategies and media and delivery techniques appropriate to the adult learner are also described. This is a practical hands-on course where each student is expected to develop, deliver, and be critiqued on a training presentation. The presentation will be videotaped for those who request. The course is designed for compliance with the ANSI Z-490 standard and participants are eligible to sit for the National Environmental Training Association CET or CIT exam.


Advanced Topics in Environmental, Safety & Occupational Health (1-3 hrs) 

This course provides for study of selected areas of environmental, safety, and occupational health management not included in regularly offered courses. The course may be taken multiple times, provided the topics are different, for a maximum of six credits. 


Geographic Information Systems (3 hrs) 

This is a computer applications course analyzing datasets that have a spatial or geographic component. Course-supplied software integrates database applications, cartographic display, spatial mathematics and analysis, and import-utilities to work with proprietary databases or data retrieved from national repositories. Case studies are developed from the fields of natural resources and environmental management, facility and utility administration, regional planning, commerce and marketing, public health and epidemiology, and other topics of student interest. Local, regional, national, and international projects are explored.