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To learn more about programmatic accreditation and the benefits of it, visit escogroup.org and select Accreditation.
Alright, thank you all for joining us. We're hanging out with Dennis Sukup, the Accreditation Team Specialist here at HVAC Excellence.
And we are, we're taking the time to talk about that process of the application and review of a program to become accredited.
So there's, there's five primary steps, wouldn't you say, Dennis?
Yes, there are, Clifton. When you, when you look at the process, the application, there's five areas of things that you need to be concerned about in order to be ready, submit, and start to schedule your site visit.
Okay, so within the, the accreditation manual, so we have a couple of pages that kind of starts out that process.
So in the manual that I'm looking at, it's page six and seven. And what we discuss is, you know, the introduction to it is the following instructions will provide an approximate timeframe for each step of the accreditation process.
Depending upon the response time, the process may be completed in as little as 90 days, or can take as long as six months. So in general, is that a pretty decent reference?
Well, yes, yes, it is Clifton. And you know, in some cases, you know, and I get a call and talk to a lot of people about they're ready, or they think they're ready, and they're a little bit overwhelmed when they see the actual process, or they start looking into those pages that you're talking about.
And then there then there sets into a fear factor. Because sometimes it's a, it's an industry professional like myself who worked in the industry 40 plus years, you know, and then found myself in the system of higher education.
And then here you are receiving these, these instructions or the idea that you want to take your program through accreditation. And for a one person program officer or instructor, if you will, it starts to look a little overwhelming.
Yes, until you figure out how to break it down into, as we say, you know, how do you eat that elephant in the room, one bite at a time.
Exactly. Well, I mean, if we think about the whole intent of accreditation, and you know, let's think about the purposes of moving your program from, you know, a successful existing program into an accredited program.
What are the what are the benefits of doing this?
Well, you know, some of the things that we all realize that we have great programs, but some of the benefits are, are one, let's think about the students, they get to graduate from an accredited program so this becomes something that's very powerful in their resume.
And they're right when they're seeking employment, you know, I am an employer here in Nevada. And when you're looking for employees and you see that graduated from accredited program, you have an expectation of what their knowledge and background is for the schools, one of the benefits
to the schools alone is, is many times there are particular grants or federal funding and things that come along the way of the grants office for financial funding to gain more equipment. And one of the first questions those organizations ask is, are you an accredited program?
Do you have that seal of approval, if you will, from that disinterested third party, you know, and that's what HVAC excellence becomes we're a third party that takes a deep dive into that program to see if it meets those standards.
So we're evaluating a program to make sure that has, you know, uniform consistency across the country.
You know, it's funny you say that because in one of the talks that I give when I speak to the students during an accreditation visit, and I always asked you know why I'm here.
And of course they usually do not. And when I talk about the accreditation and what's it mean. And I always give them the McDonald's example, if you will, that we want that cheeseburger in San Francisco to be the same cheeseburger in Miami, Florida.
Oh yeah, meaning that that student we have an expectation that the quality of education coming from that student is the same across the country it meets the standard to get into the workforce what the employers are looking for.
I'd have no fear if a student came to me from Ivy Tech in Indiana with a diploma and I realized they are an accredited program, and I have an expectation of their knowledge and their background.
Okay, I mean I would think that that would be the goal for every program is to, you know, to meet that bar to have that consistency to be recognized as a industry standard.
So, in doing that let's let's talk about these five primary steps so I've decided that or my department has decided that we would like to seek accreditation.
So, step one is an application and a program video.
Yes, the application is not very difficult it's maybe one two pages of some simple questions and simple things to be filled out. And in the last, I want to say year or two we've added the process of the program video.
Now, that's not to take anything into fear we're not looking for a television broadcast major production. It's simply walking with your iPhone if you will, and covering those items that are listed there on page six, letting us take a look at your laboratory
just do a walkthrough and show some of your equipment your trainers, show some of your safety your fire extinguisher shunt switches, perhaps even the ventilation system that's that's removing the air from that lab and then even some of your tool room and recording instruments vacuum
pumps and so forth, where you store your refrigerant and your combustible gases. That's basically again it's still a walk around with a simple narrative, then into the classroom and office, you know, letting us see the space where instructors meet
and have a space to meet with students, and maybe even a look into your library or something to that effect. And we asked that only because before we make the commitment and to spend all of the dollars to fly out to a program.
We just want to validate that the program is actually ready and does contain the elements of a program that can be accredited. Yeah, there's a lot of things to, you know, look out there, even if it's my own program, and I'm wanting to create this video and fill out the
application. That's kind of a checklist of myself to walk through and go, okay, do I have fire extinguishers in the right places. Do I have home I don't even have I was stations. I wash stations maybe I should stop and regroup on this as a high priority before we even
proceed, or emergency cutoff switches. You know there are things that we can look at and go okay, wow, maybe I'm not as prepared as I thought I was.
It is it's a good clue of if we're asking for it in the video. Obviously it should be something that tells you, we're going to look at it in person. This is what works. You know, and I get a lot of, I get a lot of comments when I flip the tag on a fire extinguisher.
First thing faculty will usually say well that's the responsibility of facilities and I usually answered by yes, I know, but you're going to be the one wearing the black eye. If I see that it's expired. It's up to you to maintain those and keep your lab in a safe environment.
All right, so we got a nice you know preview of what we should be expecting of ourselves we filled out an application and we've submitted a video of our of our program our facility.
So step one is checked off now we move on to step two, which is the team member assignment.
Yes, so usually after the video is reviewed, but that's usually by one of the team members that handle standards five through nine. That's the technical side of the program because we're the ones looking at the lab and the and the equipment to see that things meet standards.
So once that's happened we've placed them into the candidacy level and and then team members are assigned will decide which one of our 10 member staff or which two of the 10 member staff is going to go ahead and start communicating with the college and arrange what date will actually come out for the site visit.
Okay, so we have went through our mental checklist put our video together on on step one, step two, the accreditation team is has looked through the applications in the video decided that we're ready to assign some people to this assignment.
Step three. Now we're going to start diving a little bit deeper and do a self study.
So the self study. That's the one that became or becomes most daunting for faculty members when they take a look at it, because now they're looking at all of the requirements for standards one through nine standards one and four being through the administrative side
and five and nine, the technical, and you know when you're when you're that smaller program or you're only one or two faculty members or like I was back in the day, just the only one in the program, it becomes terrorizing to look at that self study and say wow I really want to reach this
accreditation level for my program and for the college, but this is a little bit well beyond, you know my ability as a technician. So, I, my best advice is is take the self study and look at it look calmly at each of the standards, and then break it down, break it
down as to there's someone within your organization that is an expert in each one of those standards. When it gets to budget and finance, go talk to your budget and finance officer, show them what the requirements are and they can help you gather that information
and send it to you. Usually every organization has or college has an Office of institutional research. And in that office you can get the statistics that we're asking for with the number of students that are in your program, or the number of graduates that are in your
program. Each technical program generally has somebody who takes care of the tool room. Sometimes it's a student worker or sometimes it's a state classified work. You give that tool list here's the recommended tool list. Do we have it. Do you have an inventory of all those tools, are they
arranged neatly and are they accessible to students. So just break it down and look in your own organization, who's the expert in each one of these standards and cut it up. And at the end of the day, you'll reassemble it, and you'll suddenly find out, wow, my self study is
ready to go. And so there's a there's quite a bit of things that we need to gather there. So it's not something you're going to have put together in a day or two, or maybe not even a week or two. So how much time are we allotted for that that process. Well, again, I think the process is based on on how fast you want to do it. We will not begin to review or get ready for that site visit to live at at least 45 days worth of self study because we're going to be
at 45 days worth of self study because the team has to look at it. But you can take the time you need now. It also depends on is this your first accreditation, or are you doing a re accreditation and are you under a time crunch, because you're looking at an expiration date, but it wouldn't surprise me at all that to put together an effective
process for all of its components and allowing the independent offices within your organization to gather that information to take at least 90 days to get that accomplished. Okay, pretty realistic. A lot of things to go over there. Okay, so we've completed step three, we've done the entire self study, we've checked through our list of items that we feel are acceptable. Now we're ready to go to step four scheduling an on site visit from the accreditation team.
Okay, so back in the back of the house the the team members will communicate with each other I'll, I'll communicate with my partner, will we looking at the calendar and see possible dates that work for us to do a travel.
And at the same time that team leader, he is then working with the academic vice presidents, the deans, if you will, or the co chairs of the program and working those same dates that work for them. What does work and their schedule so that they're available and all of the components are available for us to look at when we arrive, because we will we will break up into a few sessions and I think we'll.
This is probably the time to talk about that is will work with the standards one through four on the administrative side, I'll work with standards five through nine. And then we have groups that we want to talk to throughout the process, all the way from their website, their administrative their
finance people students services, and then as well on a technical side, I'm meeting with other groups there with students advisory boards and so forth. So once we've agreed on that date, then we will travel with a schedule in hand that begins at 830 in the morning, and we define each 30 minute
segment if you will of what we're expecting to do what we're expecting to cover all the way to mid afternoon, when we have our determination or we'll have our exiting strategy meeting with the staff.
Okay, so we're not just looking at the functionality of the program from the technical perspective we're looking at the entire program. It's you know feasibility from funding, it's, you know media outreach we're looking at the program to just validate that it is a program that
will continue developing as time goes along, setting a standard for development.
Oh, we do I mean my partner who's looking at one through four. He looks at a lot of aspects the ease of accessing the school's website. How easy how many pushes on it does it take to get to action to the air conditioning program, how much information is out there.
He looks for a lot of accuracy and all of that. And then he looks at how much money is put into the program do they have adequate funds to sustain the program I mean equipment is expensive it's, it's, you know, HVAC and running a lab is not a cheap date.
It's a lot of equipment and a lot of expendables to keep that running so, so they do look at all of that to see if the program can sustain that and has the adequate funds and needs, and even just student services scholarships and things that that make things easy in the
program in order to stay in the program, graduate and be successful. Awesome. So a lot of things that we probably are not looking at as a you know many of us were technicians out in the field coming into a program trying to make us a program successful and may not
have had the roadmap so it is a complete roadmap to a successful program.
Right. Once, and once all that's done, Clifton and I guess that'll take us to the final determination step five. Yes, step five so once we have, and we'll start our day a little bit like the will take a complete quick tour of the lab and this way, the administrative
house accreditation specialist gets to do a quick tour of the lab just to get a snapshot of what the program looks like. Right, just that's just a walking tour just something before he begins to sit down with administrative and then we separate and I go into the deep
dive. When we do come back, we do come back together, and that's usually sometime after lunch, and then we will discuss will discuss. Are there any recommendations, or are there any suggestions or recommendations are a little bit more of a hard line some of those are our time
compliance recommendations saying this needs to be done before we can accredited we find this as a, as a big problem. Suggestions are just that suggestion suggestions we make to help improve programs maybe things we've seen a little better in one part of the country
than another part. So we'll make suggestions. And at the end we will determine that we'll talk together over the program and decide, is this program viable for a six year accreditation or not. However, that's not the end of the of the decision a lot of people think
that is we make our decision, we write that up into a lengthy report, we send that back to ESCO group. And again, it meets with another board that takes a look at everything that we found everything that we've written suggested or noted, and then a final determination is
actually made that the school has received either a first time six year accreditation, or a re accreditation. Fantastic. Alright, so very thorough process that is vetted by now a third party organization being brought back for a secondary review.
Yes, quite, quite the extensive, quite the extensive evaluation. And there's a little bit more to that which is, which is one of the reasons when I took the college that I worked at through HVAC excellence and I did it mainly because of exactly the words
HVAC excellence, HVAC excellence is is dedicated to the HVAC program, and there is the ongoing components that at the end of that exiting meeting I will discuss with the faculty and say you know, this is not just a chance to sit back for six years.
Some other accreditation companies may do that but not HVAC excellence and that's one of the deciding factors for me, there is the component where the faculty member must continue a growth plan they must continue CE use throughout the year that comes in in an annual report.
A lot of places don't even do that. Right. With HVAC excellence, we're taking a look at it every year we want to know, did you hire new people, are they qualified, did you buy new equipment and if so what did you do.
We just want to continue to see that that program is continuing to grow and is continuing to maintain that accreditation.
So an annual report is due every year. And then we asked the faculty, we asked the faculty to take tests and upgrade their own status, you know full time faculty we have what's known as the CM HE, we asked them to pass over a course of time, seven of those courses and contain
the master's educators credentialing, and even the part time faculty, at least to take the CSM E, which is a subject matter educator, and at least the field that they are teaching.
So if you're teaching gas fired furnaces, we want them to take the gas fired.
Absolutely, we hold them at a little bit of a higher bar. The rigor of that test is different than the employment readiness they need to know that it's different than the one they give the students.
So it's a little more rigor to it. And then it has a higher bar for a pass fail rate. And then we asked that they continue to work through that throughout that six year accreditation, so that by time the next level comes around, they have attained enough CSM ease to become
a master and continue their growth plan.
Fantastic stuff.
So we have a very thorough five step program to get us into the accreditation process and evaluation and determination. Dennis Sukup, educator, brought into HVAC excellence first program, now an accrediting officer within the Institute, so shows how far the program can take your own development.
Anything want to add on to that before we get out of here, Dennis?
No, I don't think so. Okay, that's a fantastic coverage of our five steps. We thank you all for joining us and we look forward to talking to you and later.
Have a great day.
Thank you.