The Graduate Clinical Coordinator and the rest of UNCW's clinical team

The Graduate Clinical Coordinator approves

The GCC is the approval point for DNP clinical placements. UNCW's handbook says student-identified preceptors and sites "must be appropriate for meeting clinical objectives for each course and must be approved by the GCC," and its process chart has the coordinator reviewing a submitted intent roughly one week after it lands.

The same role signs off on several other decisions: a return to a previous preceptor, the FNP specialty clinic hours in the final course, and your clearance to start, which includes a review of immunizations, background check and drug test. The coordinator's published inbox on the preceptor pages is DNPClinicals@uncw.edu.

UNCW's sources describe the role two ways. The Preceptor's Corner names a single Graduate Clinical Coordinator, while the Fall 2025 clinical handbook refers to Graduate Clinical Coordinators in the plural and routes much of its process through the Clinical Placement Team's shared inbox. Use the address your Canvas clinical course gives for your cohort.

Course faculty run the rotation

Once you are in clinic, your clinical course faculty take over the day-to-day academic side. Per the handbook, they visit each clinical site at least once a semester (more when a concern comes up), complete your evaluation and a site evaluation during that visit, and confirm your finished clinical hours in Typhon.

Faculty also give your preceptor program and course information and the evaluation tools, while you send the preceptor the orientation materials, course objectives and preceptor guidelines. FNP students contact clinical faculty to schedule the site visit after submitting their evaluations at about 90 hours.

When hours or encounters fall short at the end of a term, course faculty set the time frame for finishing an incomplete. Questions about grading, evaluations and your progress in a practicum belong with them rather than the Clinical Placement Team. The evaluations and site visits page covers that process.

Advisors and the Student Success Center

Advisors are the people for plan-of-study and registration questions rather than placements. For the Nurse Executive Leadership concentration, the handbook says course faculty and the student's advisor can assist with immersion hours, while the student remains responsible for identifying, obtaining and logging them.

For the MSN Nurse Educator, the Nurse Educator Post-Graduate Certificate, the RN-BSN and the BSN, the CHHS Student Success Center handles admission, advising and registration. If you are unsure which curriculum sequence you follow after the Fall 2025 change, your advisor or concentration lead can confirm it; the curriculum transition page explains both sequences.

Your plan of study also fixes the semester of your first practicum, which in turn sets when your preceptor search should begin. The first clinical semester page lays out that timing by plan.

Where we fit alongside UNCW's team

UNCW students choose us because we do the part of the process that sits with the student: finding a North Carolina preceptor who fits the course, then gathering every detail the Graduate Clinical Coordinator reviews, from a dated CV that names the site to the agency's county and agreement contact. You submit a packet that is complete on arrival. We also keep UNCW's timelines in view: packets ready for the application window, sites with existing agreements noted, and any site fee raised early.

The coordinator decides; we make that decision straightforward by sending nothing half-finished. If a preceptor drops, we find a replacement and prepare the new details quickly. Read how it works or send us your course and semester.