The College of Nursing defines a full-time course load as at least six credit hours per semester while a part-time course load is up to six credit hours per semester. Consult the Office of Financial Aid for eligibility guidelines. You must complete at least 18 graduate hours within your first three semesters to satisfy graduate residency. If you are enrolled in the BSN to DNP track, you may select six or nine credit hours per semester.

You can generally work while completing the DNP program. However, you will have to make adjustments in your work schedule to meet the program’s academic and project demands.

A program of study of study will be developed for you upon admission, which will outline courses you will take in the upcoming semesters.

As a newly admitted student, you will be given a degree plan outlining your required classes throughout the program. Once your plan of study is established, no advising is required unless you need to change the plan of study, take a term away or have other circumstances requiring a change in the established progression outlined. Advisement can be conducted by phone, email or in person.

The College of Nursing maintains a list of contracts/agreements on Blackboard. If you are a post- master’s DNP student, the experience generally occurs at the site where you are employed and supports the outcomes of the selected DNP project.

The clinical hours during enrollment in the class should allow for advanced experiences beyond your current position and job responsibilities. In instances where you are not able to complete the required clinical hours with an employer, alternative experiences at specific healthcare organizations will need to be approved by the course instructor or DNP project chair.

The College of Nursing Office of Student Services supports the college in establishing new agreements or contracts with approved clinical settings. Establishing a new agreement with a setting or person can take six months or longer to finalize. We recommend starting the process early.

If you are enrolled in the AGACNP or FNP track, you will take two to three required immersion courses; each course will require coming to campus one to two times. PMHNP students will need to come to campus one time.  On-campus immersions are generally two to three days in duration. Please see the curriculum page for the specific courses and schedule.

All DNP students will come to campus for their final project proposal and defense.

All didactic course content is online. Courses are taught using the Blackboard CMS and Adobe Connect.

The College of Nursing has a mandatory student orientation that is delivered online. You must complete the orientation session by the designated deadline to be cleared for your first semester of courses.