USU's Office of Field Experience: what it does and who's who
The Office of Field Experience (OFE) is the team in USU's College of Nursing and Health Sciences that runs clinical placements. It checks your leads, sends affiliation agreements, tracks your compliance and issues the approval letter that lets you start. It works with you rather than for you, and it doesn't approve preceptors itself: the Program Director does.
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What the OFE is, and which programs it serves
The OFE sits inside the College of Nursing and Health Sciences (CONHS) and supports every USU program with a clinical or practicum component: RN-BSN, MSN Family Nurse Practitioner, MSN Health Care Leadership, MSN Nurse Educator, the DNP and Post-Master's Certificates. Whatever your track, the same office handles your placement file from first lead to approval letter.
It organizes that work around a model it calls PAC: Preceptor, Agreement, Compliance, with Project Mentor as the P for DNP students. The PAC checklist page breaks the model into its items, and the full placement process puts them in order. This page is about the office itself and the people in it.
Be clear on one thing from day one: the OFE is a partner, not a placement agency. USU's catalog makes you responsible for identifying preceptors and sites and asks you to work actively with the OFE to get them in place.
What the OFE actually does
Across USU's three clinical handbooks, the OFE's work comes down to these jobs:
- Reviews the leads on your Interest Form and checks whether USU already has an agreement with each site or needs to reach out.
- Routes your preceptor's documents to the Program Director for credentialing and a decision.
- Sends the Affiliation Agreement directly to the site and manages the legal review between USU legal and the site's legal department.
- Updates your compliance status after Complio has reviewed your health and safety records.
- Emails the OFE Approval Letter once preceptor, agreement and compliance are all approved.
- May offer you a placement if your own leads fall through, with priority for students who met the document deadlines.
- Asks preceptors to renew expiring licenses and puts them through periodic re-review.
The OFE also keeps a database of approved sites and preceptors, but the handbook says it isn't publishable, so you can't browse it; you talk options through with your CPC. USU's 2024 network figures described thousands of affiliation agreements and more than 7,000 potential preceptors nationwide. Those numbers are dated and don't tell you who has room in your county this term.
Who's who: the OFE roles USU lists
The OFE page links to a contact sheet, an undated Google Doc, that lists the team by title. USU only describes some of these roles in its handbooks, so the table sticks to what's published and says so where nothing is.
| Role | What USU says about it |
|---|---|
| Clinical Placement Coordinator (CPC I and CPC III) | Your assigned contact, listed in the Student Portal. Reached by email or a Calendly booking, with replies expected within 24 business hours. |
| Site Developer | Listed on the contact sheet. USU doesn't publish what the role covers. |
| Placement Operations Lead | Listed on the contact sheet; duties not published. |
| Lead Affiliate Coordinator | Listed on the contact sheet; duties not published. The handbook has the OFE and your CPC managing agreement reviews. |
| Manager, Office of Field Experience | Listed on the contact sheet. |
| Executive Director, Office of Field Experience | Listed on the contact sheet. The FNP handbook separately says the Program Director or OFE Director can require a student to self-place after a Code of Conduct violation, clinical probation or a jeopardized placement. |
| Program Director (faculty, outside the OFE) | Gives final approval or denial of each preceptor or mentor. The FNP handbook also lists an FNP Clinical Assistant Program Director and an FNP Assistant Program Director. |
| Clinical Site Supervisor (faculty) | Evaluates your site and preceptor through a visit arranged by USU email. May or may not be your course's clinical faculty. |
You'll deal with your Clinical Placement Coordinator far more than anyone else here. The DNP handbook calls the same person the Practice Immersion Placement Coordinator (CPC).
How to reach the OFE
Email is the documented route. Write to ofe@usuniversity.edu for general OFE questions and to your CPC for anything about your own placement. Send it from your USU-issued Google email every time: the FNP handbook says all CONHS communication must come from your university address.
To talk something through, book your CPC with the Calendly link in the Student Portal (MYPORTAL). Email replies are expected within 24 business hours, so a message sent late on a Friday may not be answered until Monday or Tuesday. The handbook is also clear that same-day or urgent requests for sites and preceptors can't be accommodated, so build that lag into your plans.
Email is the best way to reach the OFE. USU's own pages print two different phone numbers for the office, one of which appears to be a typo, and email leaves you a written record of what was asked and agreed.
What the OFE won't do for you
Knowing the office's limits saves a lot of frustrated email. According to USU's catalog and FNP handbook:
- It won't approve your preceptor. That's the Program Director's decision, covered on the Program Director approval page.
- It won't hold an offered placement open. You have 24 business hours to accept; decline or stay silent and you self-place for that rotation. The rules are on the OFE placement support page.
- It won't accept travel time as a reason to turn a site down. The catalog expects you to travel to any site in your state at your own expense.
- It won't waive health and safety requirements. Refuse one, or ask for a medical waiver, and you find and secure your own placement.
- It won't find a replacement if you change preceptors for your own reasons. The handbook's Preceptor Fit rule puts that search back on you.
- It may stop helping you place at all after a Code of Conduct violation, clinical probation or a jeopardized placement.
The OFE's side of the preceptor relationship
The OFE recruits and supports preceptors as well as students. USU's Preceptor Resources Hub invites clinicians in family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, geriatrics, women's health and nursing leadership or education to submit a Preceptor Inquiry Form, and preceptors sign USU paperwork electronically, with DocuSign as the main tool.
USU doesn't pay preceptors. It offers a 10% tuition discount on selected USU programs, access to USU continuing education and the library, and an unpaid Honorary Clinical Faculty title for 135 service hours a year. The handbook makes CONHS responsible for orienting each preceptor, and USU's 2024 onboarding guidance described a Preceptor Orientation Checklist. If a clinician you're approaching asks what's in it for them, send them to our page for preceptors.
Why students choose us alongside the OFE
The search the catalog leaves to you is where we come in: finding a preceptor and site that fit your USU course and state, then helping you prepare the preceptor packet and site details so what reaches the OFE is complete. The OFE and the Program Director review and decide every piece, and they receive it complete and matched to USU's rules.
To tell us your track and state, use the form below.
Questions USU students ask
What is the email address for USU's Office of Field Experience?
It's ofe@usuniversity.edu. Send from your USU Google email and include your full name, program, the clinical course number and the session it starts in, so nobody has to write back asking. For anything about your own placement, write to your assigned CPC as well, since they handle your file day to day.
Is the OFE the same as my clinical faculty?
No. The OFE handles placements, agreements, compliance status and approval letters. Clinical faculty teach and grade your course, a Clinical Site Supervisor evaluates your site and preceptor, and the Program Director approves preceptors. The handbook notes that the Clinical Site Supervisor may or may not be the same person as your course's clinical faculty.
Can I see the OFE's list of approved preceptors and sites?
No. The FNP handbook says the OFE's database of approved sites and preceptors isn't publishable. What you can do is list your leads on the Interest Form and ask your CPC, ideally in a Calendly meeting, whether USU already works with sites near you. A site with an existing agreement skips the longest wait in the process.
Can the OFE rush my approval if my course starts soon?
Generally not. The handbook says same-day or urgent requests for sites and preceptors can't be accommodated, and Complio doesn't take rush requests. Approvals are meant to be on file 16 weeks before the course. If you're already inside that window, tell your CPC now and ask what's realistic rather than waiting to see.
Does the OFE work with DNP and RN-BSN students too?
Yes. The OFE supports RN-BSN, MSN Nurse Educator, Health Care Leadership, FNP and DNP students. DNP students work with a Practice Immersion Placement Coordinator and need a Project Mentor rather than a preceptor. RN-BSN students find their own community agency leader, and the OFE provides that leader's orientation.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-23
We check these pages against USU's own catalog, handbooks and disclosures. USU's current handbook and your Clinical Placement Coordinator have the final word.
Six months out is USU's rule. We start now.
Tell us your USU program, your state and when your next practicum opens. We look for preceptors who meet USU's rules and help you build the packet the Office of Field Experience and Program Director review.
- Preceptors matched to the course: family practice, pediatrics, women's health, urgent care within USU's caps
- Appendix H, license, CV and board certification gathered the way OFE asks
- In person near you; telehealth only inside USU's 40-hour limit
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