Arkansas HVACR NewsMagazine November 2025

HVACR NewsMagazine November 2025

education News

Arkansas College Instructors Partner for Quality and Consistency

In the fall of 2024, the Arkansas HVACR instructors met to explore the future of HVACR education. The consensus was to develop program consistency and transferability. Developing skill sets and assessments that prepare students to be successful are the primary goals. As most of us know, Arkansas HVACR training programs have had a questionable history. That is not the case anymore. Four of the colleges are now accredited by HVAC Excellence, the largest and most respected accrediting organization in the country. At least two more are in the process of being accredited and the outlook is very good. For almost a year, a committee of the council worked on course numbering and description that will make transferability much easier. The goal, for example, is for a student at Northwest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville to be able to transfer to UA Monticello / Crossett with ease. After all, you can do it with General Education classes. Why not with HVACR? With 15 colleges, the difficulty has been knowing which class in one location is the same as the one to ASU / Beebe ATU / Ozark UA North Ark (Harrison) UA Pulaski Tech (North Little Rock) Colleges Accredited by HVAC Excellence

which they are transferring. When this process is completed, it will be possible. The Council is meeting in November over the Thanksgiving break to take the next step of reviewing the suggestions of the committee and getting consensus. That is quite a sacrifice in that the instructors will be giving up part of their holiday. The next step will be for instructors to develop a set of required skills for each course and the method of assessment. It is important that HVACR students know the reasoning for and the ability to work on equipment; i.e., “ fix stuff. ” A contractor needs to know what can be expected of the student and the student needs to be able to perform at a level that justifies their pay scale. This process will require a lot of time and then a blending of ideas and developing consensus among the instructors. After that, college administrators and the Arkansas Department of Higher Education will make their suggestions and adjustments. The result will be HVACR training programs that serve the residential and commercial customer with professional comfort and refrigeration service. There are so many opportunities in the HVACR industry and the Instructor ’ s Council is playing a pivotal role in meeting the needs of students, contractors, and consumers.