While many UW students pride themselves on being knowledgeable about the issues facing Seattleites during election time, few have taken active interest in the elections within their university.

In the next two months, the UW Department of Environmental Safety & Health will be holding elections for safety-committee representatives, positions that most UW employees are eligible for, including part-time and temporary student workers.

The UW has 12 safety committees for areas such as student life, academics, health sciences, and finance and facilities. They review incident reports and work to resolve ongoing issues in their field. The Department of Labor and Industries requires that elections for representatives be held annually, but since the university is such a large institution, it has been permitted to hold them every two years.

“To my knowledge, few, if any, student employees have been elected to represent their departments in the safety and health-committee system at the university,” said Ron Fouty, University-Wide Health and Safety (U-Wide) Committee chair. “Though each employee (including students) have the opportunity to nominate, be nominated and vote, sometimes it is a challenge to get people engaged.”

In fact, Michael Merrill, elections director, said she could only think of one student who has recently been on a safety committee roster, but he transferred to NYU.

“I can only guess why students aren’t more involved,” Merrill said. “It would be interesting to know.”

The safety committees use e-mail, flyers, phone calls and campus-mail distribution lists to get the election information to student employees. However, some students say they don’t feel well informed.

“I was not aware that such elections were even going on, or that I am eligible to run,” said junior Joey Manke, who works in McMahon’s 8. “I’m not sure if I’ve received any e-mails or fliers, although I also admit I haven’t been looking for anything like that.

Dining-hall workers like Manke fit into the Student Life committee, which is headed by Eric Godfrey, the vice provost of Student Life. Godfrey said an e-mail was sent out to student employees explaining the election procedures and nomination deadlines.

Each committee handles its own election and most are in the nomination process right now.

In mid-December, after all committees have completed the election process, two representatives from each committee will be chosen to be on the U-Wide Committee.

The committee examines universal issues from workplace-violence policies to asbestos training to bicyclists’ safety.

“I think it would be very beneficial for student employees to be involved, both for the student and the committee,” Fouty said. “The students bring a fresh perspective with them, which can be very helpful to any established system. The student would also get insight to the various university departments and get perspective on what it takes to make a large university operate.”

Ideal candidates are people who can be easily reached and who can successfully disseminate information to their constituency. Each representative must attend at least one meeting per month, and students can nominate and vote for themselves.

Complete information on election procedures and committees can be found online at ehs.washington.edu/ohssafcom/index.shtm.

Reach reporter Katie McVicker at news@dailyuw.com.