Affiliation agreements: why your Kent State practicum site needs one first

The rule: no current agreement, no counted hours

The graduate handbook for 2025-2026 is blunt: Kent State counts practicum hours solely at facilities that hold a current affiliation agreement with its College of Nursing, and the college negotiates those agreements with the facility, never the student. Plan on it for every graduate practicum you take.

Two words in that rule do the work. Current means an agreement that has lapsed or not yet taken effect does not help you. Facility means the agreement attaches to the organization, not to your preceptor, so a preceptor's enthusiasm cannot stand in for it.

This is the step students most often discover late. It sits between finding a willing preceptor and earning final approval, and because it runs on the college's and the facility's calendars rather than yours, it is the one you cannot rush at the end.

When your preceptor works at a new site

If the facility where your preceptor practices has no agreement, the placement is still possible, but only after the college arranges one. Kent State publishes no request form and no lead time for that process, and no public page names a college-level agreement coordinator. Your practicum faculty and concentration coordinator are the right first contacts.

Tell them about the site the moment it becomes a serious candidate, not after the preceptor has signed on for every date. Share the facility's name, location and the preceptor's details, and answer whatever faculty ask for promptly. Everything after that runs between the college, the facility and the university contracts office.

Keep a second option alive while the agreement is pending. A backup preceptor at a facility that already holds a current agreement protects your semester if the new contract is not signed in time.

Planning your timeline around the agreement

Because the agreement is the step with no published clock, build your plan backward from the semester dates. Hours cannot begin before the first day of the term without coordinator approval and must end by its last day, as our page on practicum semester rules explains.

1. Ask about agreement status firstBefore you invest in onboarding, ask practicum faculty whether the facility holds a current agreement with the College of Nursing.
2. Flag a new site immediatelyIf there is no agreement, pass the site details to faculty right away so the college can open the conversation with the facility.
3. Run compliance in parallelKeep your Clinical Compliance Policy items current while you wait, so the agreement is the only thing left to clear.
4. Hold a backup at a partner siteKeep one option at a facility with a current agreement until the new contract is signed.
5. Confirm before the first dayCheck that the agreement is in effect and final approval is given before your first scheduled practicum hour.

A late agreement costs weeks, and weeks matter: a 2-credit practicum carries 150 hours at Kent State's rate of 75 per credit, about 10 a week across the term.

Why students bring us in before the paperwork starts

The agreement step is where good placements lose time, and it is where our early work pays off most. When we find a preceptor and site for your Kent State course, we identify right away whether the facility is likely to need a new College of Nursing affiliation agreement, and we tell you so the request reaches your practicum faculty while there is still room on the calendar.

We gather the site details faculty ask for, from the facility's name and location to its onboarding needs, so the college has what it needs to open the conversation. Where timing is tight, we steer the search toward sites that fit both your course and your semester, and we keep a backup ready. The college and the facility sign the agreement, and faculty approve the placement; we make sure nothing on your side slows them down. Use the form below to start.