Practicum hours and a project site for NKU's post-master's DNP

The program page lists 35 credits, as few as 20 months and 100% online coursework. Thirty of those credits are the doctoral core: DNP 800, 801, 802, 803, 804, 805, 806, 808, MHI 815 and DNP 816. The practicum lives in four 7-week project courses worth 1.25 credits each.

The same page's summary still describes a one-hour course taken five times, a leftover from the older design. The DNP practicum page goes course by course.

According to NKU's FAQ, a DNP graduate needs 1,000 practicum hours after the bachelor's degree, and MSN clinical hours that can be verified are credited. The DNP 897 description says it "can be used to meet the post BSN 1000 hours" of practicum time. Your starting point therefore depends on how many hours your master's program can document.

The 2023-24 catalog spelled the range out: post-master's students had between 500 and 1,000 DNP practicum hours, with the exact number tied to how much practicum time their MSN included, documented with a letter from the MSN program. At that time the practicum ran as DNP 896, taken four times in 16-week terms. The current page gives no separate figure, so check your own figure against the guidelines in the DNP Info Site before you plan. If your MSN was at NKU, certification of clinical hours is a School of Nursing graduate form request.

The practicum is built around your project. The proposal in DNP 882 is developed together with the site, and DNP 883 puts it into practice on location. The 2023-24 catalog described the project team as you, a practice mentor and a faculty chair, sent projects to NKU's IRB, and called practicum hours individualized experiences with one or more preceptors.

NKU's public pages don't say who finds the project site. NKU keeps the DNP handbook and practicum guidelines inside the DNP Info Site on Canvas, and the program mailbox is dnp@nku.edu. A site that welcomes the project, and a mentor with the authority to open doors, make each later course run more smoothly.

What a strong project site offers

• A real practice problem that fits the 7-week project courses
• A practice mentor willing to join your project team
• Leaders who can approve implementation during DNP 883
• Data and staff access for evaluation in DNP 884
• A location in a state NKU authorizes for the DNP

Your core coursework already points the way. DNP 805 covers quality improvement strategies and DNP 816 the analysis and application of health data, so a site with a measurable quality problem and data you can reach lets you use both. A clear question also makes it easier for a busy leader to say yes.

Your own workplace may offer the easiest access, but the DNP guidelines decide whether an employer site and a colleague as mentor suit your project, so check them with your faculty chair. If you finished NKU's Nurse Executive Leadership MSN, the leaders you met in MSN 631L are natural first calls.

The 11-state NP admission list doesn't apply here. The DNP follows its own row on NKU's state table, which marks 25 jurisdictions as not authorized, California, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Missouri and DC among them. Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois sit on the authorized side, along with a longer list the table spells out.

Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia show as authorized on the newer graduate copy of NKU's table and as not authorized on the older online copy; the change came after May 2026. If you live in one of those three, confirm with NKU before you settle on a project site. NKU's licensure disclosure is blunt: in a restricted state, field placements may be out of reach. The state authorization page sets the tables side by side.

Admission asks for a master's degree with a 3.0 GPA, a nursing bachelor's or master's, a statistics course, an unencumbered US RN license showing the state where you practice, a CV, a 500-word scholarly writing sample and experience in a professional nursing role. DNP 881 opens after DNP 802, so the project clock starts partway through the core.

The project courses carry a practicum fee and student liability insurance in their course fees. NKU's Nurse Anesthesia DNP is a different program: its BSN-DNP route is campus-based and NKU assigns anesthesia rotations across its own hospital list. This page covers the online post-master's DNP, where the practicum is your project. The Canvas shells page explains where the DNP Info Site sits.

We help DNP students turn a project idea into a site that says yes. A placement advisor identifies organizations near you that fit your topic, finds a practice mentor or preceptor with the right credentials and authority, and checks the state against NKU's DNP table before you commit.

If your MSN hours leave a gap to 1,000, we find preceptors for the remaining practicum time and help you assemble what the DNP Info Site asks for. Your faculty chair and NKU approve the project; we get the site side ready early so DNP 881 starts with a confirmed partner. See how it works.