Coastal Carolina University
EN-8: Staff Professional Development

The CCU Office of Training & Development offers mandatory (required for compliance), professional development, best practices, and personal enhancement trainings as well as provides educational tours to all staff employees throughout the academic year. Many of these trainings involve sustainability practices. Eleven (11) General Safety trainings are required for all employees to complete upon hire. Each of these trainings includes a quiz and employees must successfully pass with a score of 100% to be in compliance with the university requirement by the CCU Office of University Compliance. Refresher safety trainings are also required for position-specific employees after a designation of time and there are opportunities for employees to also attend trainings at their discretion. Environmental Health & Safety trainings (EHS) include bloodborne pathogens, control of hazardous energy awareness, waste generation & disposal awareness, electrical safety, hazardous communication, workplace safety, etc. In addition, half-day educational tours of the Anne Tilghman Boyce Coastal Reserve on Waties Island, SC, are conducted throughout the academic year. Employees learn about the research performed and are given an experiential learning opportunity on the natural coastal habitat which is an outstanding example of an undeveloped complex of ocean frontage, fresh and saltwater marshes, tidal creeks, and upland woods. A university T&D representative accompanies the tour attendees as visitors are limited on the island and usage of the Coastal Reserve is restricted to research and education activities relevant to the goals and sustainability efforts supported by Coastal Carolina University. An educational tour and site visit of the Horry County Landfill and Recycling Center has also been given for employees to demonstrate the importance of and expose them to best practices of sustainability initiatives in our community. This experiential learning opportunity gave the employees a chance to ask questions, view the facilities, interact with staff performing the related duties and increase their knowledge about sustainability efforts so that they could apply some of these practices in their residence and also in their workplace. Following the training, attendees who participate receive a certificate of completion and are provided an online link to access and complete our CCU Training Evaluation Survey so that they can give feedback for continuous quality improvement of our trainings.