Nursing Education clinicals at NKU: MSN 614L and the MSN 670 capstone

NKU's Nursing Education page states that "200 clinical hours are required." They sit in two concentration courses near the end of an 11-session program, and each takes place in a different kind of setting.

The program page requires 50 direct patient-care hours in MSN 614L. The 2024-25 catalog numbers the course MSN 614, 3 credits, with admission to the Nursing Education program as its only prerequisite.

NKU's FAQ says these hours are completed with a preceptor and names a wide range of examples: a wound care specialist, a clinic, an acute care unit, a nurse midwife, an outpatient center, a PACU or a surgery center. That range often makes a preceptor at your own facility possible, within NKU's employer site rules.

In its preceptor table, NKU's FAQ gives graduate preparation in nursing education as the Nurse Educator qualification. Ask your concentration coordinator whether that applies to your MSN 614L preceptor as well as the capstone, before you approach anyone.

Fifty hours over seven weeks comes to about 7 hours a week, roughly one shift. It is the lightest clinical load in NKU's MSN, but it still needs an approved preceptor and site before the session begins.

The capstone is a practicum project in an educational setting. NKU's program page lists 150 hours, while the FAQ says "approximately 100 to 150." The 200-hour total only works at 150, so plan for 150 and let your syllabus confirm it.

For the capstone, NKU wants someone who teaches for a living and whose graduate degree, master's level or above, is in nursing education. Two kinds of site fit NKU's description: academic nursing programs, and the staff-education departments that hospitals and health systems run.

In the 2024-25 catalog, MSN 670 requires MSN 600, MSN 602 or DNP 800, DNP 816 and MSN 601, with MSN 613, MSN 614 and HHS 603 before or alongside it.

Because the capstone is a project, agree on its scope with your preceptor before the session opens. Like every NKU preceptor, your capstone preceptor verifies your logged hours in Medatrax each week and completes an end-of-term evaluation there; the hour log guide explains the weekly step.

NKU's 2025-26 Nursing Education sequence runs 11 sessions: MSN 600, MSN 602, DNP 816, MSN 601, HHS 602, HHS 500, HHS 601, then MSN 614, HHS 603, MSN 613 and finally MSN 670. A Fall 1 2025 starter on that path finishes in Summer 1 2027.

That places the physical assessment clinical in session eight and the capstone in session eleven. NKU highly recommends submitting preceptor details 90 days ahead (the deadlines guide has the full rule), and for the capstone that window opens while MSN 614 or HHS 603 is running, so both searches overlap. Plan the two preceptors together.

NKU's 11-state admission limit applies to its NP programs, not to Nursing Education. What does apply is NKU's state authorization table for the MSN, which authorizes some states and not others, and your preceptors' practices must sit in approved states. The state authorization guide sets out the table and its open questions.

Clearance works as it does for other MSN students: PreCheck at admission and the health items listed in Canvas, with a Nursing Education shell of your own. Liability insurance appears as a separate class-fee line, MSN Nurse Edu Liability Ins, on MSN 614 and MSN 670; the liability insurance guide explains it.

We line up both preceptors when you start with us: a clinical preceptor for MSN 614L in one of the settings NKU's FAQ recognizes, and an experienced educator in an academic program or a hospital education team for MSN 670. Each credential is checked against NKU's rules before a request is filed.

Every request reaches Contracts & Compliance complete, with the site contact ready if an affiliation agreement is needed. The Nursing Education program guide covers the whole concentration, and you can begin with the form below.