Finding your own preceptor as a Graceland University NP student
At Graceland University you lead the preceptor search and Graceland helps, reviews and approves. That is softer than the 2017 rule, when students were simply required to locate their own preceptors, but the first move is still yours. Here is what Graceland's help looks like today and how to search in a way that holds up at approval.
Hand the search to a placement advisor
Share your Graceland track, next practicum course, term and city, plus any clinicians you already have in mind.
What “arranged by the student” means in 2026
The 2026 Graduate Student Handbook describes MSN and certificate practicums as experiences “arranged by the student (with the assistance of GU)” and completed in your home community. Page 57 frames the same idea as Graceland and its students collaborating to locate preceptors and sites, and the page 68 flowchart shows you locating a preceptor, assisted by the Graduate Practicums Coordinator.
Put together, the roles are plain. You identify and approach the clinician, gather the site details and submit Appendix A. Graceland offers help, keeps a database of approved preceptors and sites, and decides: every preceptor and practicum site needs the approval of a contract coordinator, the course's lead faculty member, or both. The exception is a practicum where you have opted in to Graceland's NPHub option, where NPHub runs the search instead.
How the wording has changed since 2017
Graceland's handbook has moved step by step from a student duty toward shared work. The older phrasing still echoes in how classmates talk about the search, so it helps to know which edition said what.
| Handbook edition | What it says about the search |
|---|---|
| 2017 (dated 12/15/16) | Students are required to locate preceptors and practicum sites |
| December 2018 | The same requirement, unchanged |
| September 2020 | The School of Nursing and students will collaborate to locate preceptors and sites |
| September 2023 | Collaboration continues; NPHub appears as an option for FNP and PMHNP students |
| August 2025 | The program overview adds “(with the assistance of GU)”; NPHub opt-in and opt-out forms arrive |
| 2026 (9-10-26 updates) | Same shared wording; NPHub extended to FNP, AGACNP and PMHNP in most states except Minnesota |
Each edition has added support, yet none has taken the first step off the student. Plan as though the search is yours, and ask for Graceland's help early rather than as a last resort.
The help Graceland offers, and how to use it
Graceland's assistance comes in three forms. The first is the Graduate Practicums Coordinator, named in the flowchart as your partner in the search. The second is the database: the handbook points to a school-selected online database holding contact details for preceptors and sites Graceland has already approved, and you may draw on those clinicians or put forward new ones. The third is the course's lead faculty and the contract coordinators, whom the handbook asks you to contact well before your deadlines if you cannot find anyone nearby.
Use each one on purpose. Check the database before cold-calling, because a site Graceland has approved before could have a signed affiliation agreement waiting, which shortens the contract stage. Write to soncontracts@graceland.edu early; the handbook wants at least two weeks' notice before a deadline if you have no site. And bring the one-page Preceptor Information and Responsibilities sheet Graceland provides to each conversation, because it answers most of what a prospective preceptor will ask.
Iowa's rule names the program as a searcher too
The Iowa Board of Nursing approves Graceland's MSN, its post-graduate certificates and its DNP, and the state's rule for ARNP program preceptorships, 481 IAC 616.16 (effective June 2025), says: “The nursing education program and student will find an appropriate preceptor.” That is the shared model Graceland's handbook describes, set down in state rule.
The same rule asks that most of a student's preceptorship happen with an ARNP or physician in the role and population focus the student is preparing for, that preceptors be licensed under the laws of the state where they practice, and that the program review written preceptorship agreements each year. None of this changes Graceland's forms, but it is fair grounds for leaning on the coordinators when your own search stalls. The Iowa preceptors page covers the state in more depth.
Search the way Graceland reviews
A clinician who says yes is half the job; the other half is one Graceland will approve. Screen every prospect on these points before you make the ask.
- Setting: primary care only for
NURS6740andNURS6760; a hospital or specialist office for AGACNP, never urgent care or a primary care office; a psychiatrist or certified PMHNP for every PMHNP practicum. - Credentials: a master's-prepared NP with APRN experience, or a physician holding board certification or eligibility. PAs may not precept any Graceland practicum hours.
- Conflicts: not your own unit, not your supervisor or anyone you supervise, and no family, partner or close personal tie.
- Licensure: the preceptor holds an unencumbered license in the site's state, and your own RN license covers that state too.
- Volume: Graceland's review assumes one or two patients an hour for you, drawn from a population that suits the course.
- Paperwork: the site's name, each street address where you would see patients, and a contract contact for the affiliation agreement.
Ask, too, whether the site has its own system for student requests, and think beyond this practicum, since your three practicums together need two or more different preceptors. The preceptor requirements and two-preceptor rule pages hold the detail.
Who to ask, and how to ask
The handbook encourages you to ask everyone you know, and it is good advice: former instructors, NPs you have worked beside, the practice where you get your own care, classmates who finished a practicum nearby. It also reminds students that they are guests at the site and that the preceptor is giving valuable time, so make the request concrete: the course, the hours, your weekly availability, the term dates and the paperwork Graceland will send them.
Large health systems often run their own channels. Take the University of Kansas Health System: it says it began pairing students with preceptors centrally for its main campus in March 2026 and asks students there not to contact preceptors directly, while MercyOne Des Moines leaves rotations to students and individual offices. Both are those systems' own policies, and both are worth knowing before you call. See Kansas City preceptors and sites with their own request systems.
When your own search needs backup
If the weeks are slipping, you have three moves. Alert the contract coordinators a fortnight or more before the deadline, which the handbook requests. Weigh whether NPHub fits your track, state and timing. Or bring in a placement service to run the search while the choice of preceptor stays yours.
That third move is what we do. Your placement advisor starts from your city, your working pattern and the clinicians you would most like to learn from, screens each prospect on the points above and hands you the site and preceptor details Appendix A needs, contract contact included. We plan your second preceptor early as well, so the next practicum does not start from zero. How it works shows each step.
Questions Graceland students ask
Does Graceland find preceptors for its online NP students?
Not by default. Graceland assists and approves, but the handbook places the arranging with the student, and its flowchart pairs you with the Graduate Practicums Coordinator for the search. The exception is any practicum for which you choose NPHub, the paid service Graceland partners with, which then locates and contracts the preceptor.
Can I use a preceptor another Graceland student has already used?
Yes. The handbook lets you use preceptors and agencies already approved in your area, and their contact details sit in Graceland's online database. You still file your own Appendix A, the preceptor still completes a new Appendix B for your term, and the usual limits apply, including no more than two of your three practicums with the same person.
Can a coworker be my Graceland preceptor?
Sometimes. The handbook bars the unit you work on, your manager, your direct reports and anyone tied to you, professionally or personally, in a direct way. If you work for a large health system, a practicum in a separate clinical area can work. Run the exact pairing past the contract coordinators first; the workplace practicum page explains the rule.
When should a Graceland student begin the search?
Sooner than seems necessary. Graceland's handbook suggests a lead of up to a year or longer before a first practicum, even though forms sent too early sit untouched until the term before. Beginning the search two or three terms ahead leaves time for a new affiliation agreement if the site needs one.
Who is the Graduate Practicums Coordinator?
Graceland's flowchart gives that title to the person who helps you find a preceptor. Elsewhere the handbook speaks of contract coordinators and never makes clear whether the two titles mean the same staff, so email soncontracts@graceland.edu, the shared practicum mailbox, and ask for help with the search. Include your track, course, term and city.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Graceland's own catalog, program pages and Graduate Student Handbook. Your handbook, your track coordinator and the contract coordinators have the final word.
Graceland's practicums are arranged by you, with Graceland's help. We do the searching.
Tell us your Graceland track, your city and your next practicum. We find preceptors who fit the course, line up what Appendix A and Appendix B ask for, and aim everything at Graceland's paperwork deadline for your term.
- Preceptors matched to the course: primary care for FNP, hospital and ICU clinicians for AGACNP, psychiatrists and PMHNPs for PMHNP
- Site address, contract contact and preceptor details ready before the June 15, October 15 or February 15 deadline
- Close to home in your approved state, with a second preceptor planned for Graceland's two-preceptor rule
Start your placement plan
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