A supervisor is anyone who has either charge of a workplace or authority over a worker. This broad definition given in the Occupational Health and Safety Act is applicable in both the academic and administrative divisions of the University.

Thus in academic departments, individual faculty members or principal investigators may have charge of a workplace (e.g. a laboratory) or have some degree of authority over graduate students, teaching assistants, administrative staff, or other University employees. In such a case they are supervisors as defined in the Act.

Among the administrative staff of the University the supervisory role is generally more clearly defined and outlined in position descriptions.