Who does what in a Kent State practicum
A Kent State graduate practicum passes through several roles, and knowing which one owns a question saves weeks. You find the preceptor. Your concentration coordinator and practicum faculty approve it. Kent State's advising and student services office watches your license and compliance, and Kent State Online's state authorization office tracks placements outside Ohio.
Take the search off your plate
Tell us your program, your next practicum course and where you live. Your placement advisor replies with preceptor and site options that fit.
The roles at a glance
The MSN Student Handbook AY 2025-2026 and Kent State's preceptor guidebook give each part of a practicum to a named role. The table lists them by title only, since titles stay put when the people holding them change.
| Role | What they own in your practicum | When you deal with them |
|---|---|---|
| You, the student | Identifying qualified preceptors in suitable agencies and confirming them with practicum faculty | From the semester before each practicum |
| Concentration coordinator | First-practicum orientation, help with the first placement, final approval with faculty, early-start approval | Mostly before and during your first practicum |
| Practicum faculty | Confirming placements, liaison with the preceptor, Typhon monitoring, evaluations | Every practicum course |
| DNP program director and DNP Project Chair | Preceptor help for DNP students; oversight of project hours, IRB review and the defense | Across the DNP project courses |
| Office of Academic Advising and Student Services | Enrollment, overrides, compliance monitoring, license checks | From admission to graduation clearance |
| State authorization, Kent State Online | Reporting placements outside Ohio | Only if your site is out of state |
| Your preceptor | Day-to-day teaching, your schedule, the final evaluation in Typhon | Every practicum day |
Your concentration coordinator
Each MSN concentration has one coordinator, and this is the person who shapes your first placement. The handbook has coordinators run the mandatory first-practicum orientation, held 4 to 6 months before the first practicum course, and help you line up a site and preceptor in the term that precedes it.
Coordinators also hold two approvals. Final approval of a preceptor and agency rests with faculty and the concentration coordinator together, and only the coordinator can clear practicum hours that would start ahead of the semester's first day. Near the end of the program, coordinators complete certification and licensure paperwork.
After the first practicum, the coordinator's role narrows. From then on the handbook spreads help across course faculty and coordinators, adding the DNP program director for doctoral students. Our finding your own preceptor page explains what that shift means for your later searches.
Practicum faculty
Practicum faculty are the people you confirm a preceptor with, and they stay involved all term. Kent State's guidebook describes them as the liaison between the college, the preceptor and the site. They monitor Typhon, send out the preceptor's evaluation and review your logs and evaluations as the course runs.
They also carry the preceptor's side of the paperwork. When a semester opens, the faculty member assigned to you sends the preceptor an email packet with contact details, links, the syllabi and Kent State's preceptor guide to Typhon. Preceptors return a current CV to that faculty member, and at semester end faculty complete hour-verification forms for preceptors.
When a preceptor cancels or your hours fall behind, practicum faculty are the first people to tell, together with your coordinator. The handbook wants absences, and how you will make them up, reported to the preceptor and faculty alike. Our preceptor dropped out page covers the steps if a placement ends early.
The DNP program director and DNP Project Chair
DNP students work with two more roles. The Director of the DNP Program helps DNP students find preceptors, much as coordinators help MSN students. The DNP Project Chair oversees the project itself: the proposal, any IRB review with the site, implementation and the final defense.
The chair works with a committee of your advisor plus two doctorally prepared members, and the catalog requires you to defend the scholarly project before that committee. Kent State's DNP FAQ adds that each post-master's student is assigned a faculty advisor in the first semester, which matters because project work counts as practicum time from the start.
Project hours run through NURS 72692, NURS 72792 and NURS 72892, with IRB review with the site built into NURS 72792. Kent State states the DNP hour total in more than one way, and our DNP practicum hours page lays the figures side by side.
The Office of Academic Advising and Student Services
This office runs the administrative side of your practicum. The handbook lists enrollment, program plans, overrides, forms, admissions, graduation clearance and compliance monitoring among its duties. It checks your RN license against state board records when you are admitted and each time the license renews, and you must tell it about any change in license status.
Kent State uses two names for what appears to be one office. The handbook says Office of Academic Advising and Student Services; the catalog says Office of Student Services, Room 109, Henderson Hall. Titles you may meet there include the Assistant Dean for Student Services, the Academic Program Director and the Graduate Advisor for MSN, DNP and PhD students.
Three situations send you straight to it. Anyone unable or unwilling to be vaccinated reaches out at admission. Students who move, or plan to practice in another state, tell it right away. Master's students approaching the six-year limit request an extension through it, alongside the coordinator and the Associate Dean of Academics.
State authorization and the agreement side
Two university-level functions work in the background. Kent State Online's state authorization office, led by an Associate Director for Business Operations and Compliance, reports out-of-state learning placements from every Kent State campus to NC-SARA. Kent State joined SARA in 2015, but SARA leaves nursing boards out, so a host state's board may still need to approve clinicals there.
Affiliation agreements belong to the College of Nursing, which arranges them with the facility; the student never does. Practicum hours count only where a current agreement exists. Kent State's university template, dated 2015, routes signed agreements to a university contracts office.
No public page names a graduate clinical placement coordinator or a college-level agreement coordinator, so ask your concentration coordinator who is handling a new site. For state questions start with our approved states page, and for new sites the affiliation agreements page.
Where we fit among these roles
The one job Kent State hands to you, finding the preceptor, is the job we take over. We look close to home for preceptors and sites matched to your course, check each against your concentration's rotation rules and gather everything your practicum faculty and coordinator look at before they approve.
We also steer each question to the right desk. A new site goes to the college early so an affiliation agreement can start, an early-start request goes to your coordinator, and a move goes to student services. Approval stays with your faculty and coordinator, and the file they receive from us is complete and built to Kent State's rules from the start. Read how it works, or send your details through the request form further down.
Questions Kent State students ask
Does Kent State have a clinical placement coordinator for graduate nursing students?
No such title appears on Kent State's public pages. For your first practicum, the concentration coordinator is the person who helps you settle a site and preceptor one term ahead. From the second practicum on, practicum faculty and coordinators help as needed, and DNP students can also turn to the DNP program director.
Who can approve practicum hours before the semester starts?
Only your concentration coordinator. The MSN Student Handbook bars practicum hours ahead of the semester's opening day unless the coordinator approves them. You may meet your preceptor and work through agency onboarding before classes start without that approval, so the weeks before classes are the right time for those two steps.
Who needs to know if I relocate to a new state mid-program?
Tell the Office of Student Services at once. The college's approved-states page asks admitted RN-to-BSN, MSN and DNP students to report a move or planned out-of-state practice immediately, because some states' rules can rule out practicum courses there. Your RN license may also need to change to match the new state.
Who verifies my preceptor's hours at the end of the term?
Your practicum faculty. Kent State's preceptor pages say faculty complete hour-verification forms for preceptors at semester end, and faculty review your Typhon logs throughout the course. Your preceptor's part is to watch your schedule and log entries in Typhon and file the closing evaluation before the term ends.
Who helps DNP students find a preceptor at Kent State?
The Director of the DNP Program helps DNP students with preceptors, and the DNP Project Chair oversees project hours, IRB review and the defense. Kent State's DNP FAQ still describes locating a preceptor as primarily the student's job, with faculty support, so plan the search yourself and bring these roles in early.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-24
We check these pages against Kent State's own catalog, handbooks and program pages. Your MSN or DNP handbook, your syllabus, your practicum faculty and your concentration coordinator have the final word.
Kent State says the preceptor search is yours. We make it the fastest part of your practicum.
Tell us your Kent State concentration, where you live and which semester your next practicum starts. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare everything your practicum faculty and coordinator review before they approve.
- Preceptors matched to the course: primary care for
NURS 61292, acute care forNURS 61092, psychiatric care forNURS 61592, women's health forNURS 66192 - Credentials, license and site details ready for your practicum faculty and coordinator
- In your own community, in Ohio or wherever you live and hold your RN license
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