Fort Smith Osteopathic College Gets Pre-Accreditation

Kyle Parker

The Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Smith received pre-accreditation from the American Osteopathic Association’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation at its annual meeting April 16-17 in Chicago.

The endorsement will allow the college to begin actively recruiting students for its first class in August 2017. The school expects its 102,000-SF facility to be completed in June on Chad Coffey Boulevard in Chaffee Crossing.

“ARCOM has been in active development since 2014 and has worked tirelessly for this day,” said college Dean Kenneth Heiles, using the school’s acronym in a statement. “We are very excited to begin the process of recruiting for a class of 150 students to start in August 2017. We will begin rapidly expanding the number of faculty and staff hired to meet the needs of the school.”

Tuition will be $43,000 and won’t go up for 10 years, said Kyle Parker, who is the CEO of the Arkansas College of Health Education, which oversees the college. 

“Today, we are no longer a ‘proposed’ school, we are now officially the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine,” Parker said. “This is truly an economic and cultural game changer for the region.”