Campus visits, competency checks and DNP intensives at USI
The University of Southern Indiana runs its MSN and post-master's certificate programs online with no fixed on-campus immersion. Faculty can still require a campus visit to demonstrate clinical competency, syllabi can call for site visit simulations or video recordings, and DNP students attend synchronous virtual intensives, which the program pages schedule twice a year.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your USI program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your course.
Online by design, with a campus clause
USI markets the MSN as a 100% online degree, and the post-MSN DNP pages use the same phrase. No published schedule sets a residency, immersion or skills weekend for the MSN tracks or the certificates, and none of USI's current handbook or program pages describes one.
The catalog still keeps a door open. The 2026-2027 Graduate Bulletin's MSN and certificate pages say "Students may be required to visit campus to demonstrate clinical competency." The handbook's Clinical Roles page puts it from the faculty side: faculty reserve the right to require students to visit campus to demonstrate clinical competency.
Read that as a possibility you plan for, not a date on the calendar. Your course syllabus is where a specific visit or demonstration would appear, so check each clinical syllabus in the first week and ask course faculty if anything is unclear.
How faculty check competency from a distance
Most competency checks happen without anyone traveling. The University Clinical Requirements page says faculty validate clinical competency through multiple venues, including conference calls with preceptors and students, and adds that video recordings may be used as a method to evaluate clinical competency. The catalog lists virtual learning and education sessions, site visits and conference calls with preceptors and students.
Faculty also schedule site visits as needed, which brings faculty to your clinical site rather than bringing you to Evansville. These checks sit alongside the formal midterm and final ratings and the seven preceptor-faculty touchpoints each semester (how evaluations work).
For video, the syllabus sets the task. Have a reliable camera and a quiet space ready before the course starts, and ask how recordings should be submitted before the first one is due.
Site visit simulations
Among the student duties on USI's Clinical Roles page is to demonstrate clinical competency in site visit simulations as indicated in syllabi. The page does not describe a single standard format, so the syllabus for each course defines what the simulation involves, when it happens and how it is scored.
Treat a simulation like a clinical day with an audience. Review the course objectives it is built around, practice the focused history, exam and plan you would present to a preceptor, and confirm the technology in advance if it runs online. Performance here feeds the same picture of competency that your preceptor's feedback forms and the faculty ratings build over the semester. If a simulation runs at a set time, tell your preceptor and your employer early so a clinical shift or work shift does not collide with it.
DNP intensives are virtual, and required
Both DNP routes use what the handbook calls a hybrid method of course delivery: "virtual educational intensives that are synchronous." Attendance is not optional; the handbook states that student attendance for each intensive is mandated, and the same wording covers the BSN-to-DNP and the post-MSN DNP.
The post-MSN DNP program pages add the rhythm: synchronous online intensives twice a year. Those pages also call the program 100% online, which fits, since the intensives meet live online rather than on campus.
Because they are synchronous, intensives need the same protection in your work schedule as a clinical day. Once the dates are announced, block them. The BSN-to-DNP page and the post-MSN DNP page cover how the rest of each program is built.
Tests along the way
Two exams are easy to confuse with campus requirements, though both are handled online or through proctoring. Students in the advanced practice tracks take the 3-P Diagnostic Exam in the summer before their first clinical course, after NRSG 621, NRSG 622 and NRSG 623, and nationally normed predictor exams are required in the final semester.
The handbook's Online Examination Policy notes that remote exam proctoring may be required in courses with online exams, which at USI means Honorlock in Google Chrome. The Rice Library Testing Center registers exams with certified proctors when a course calls for one. The student systems page covers both tools.
The 3-P timing has a practical side: it falls in the same summer you are preparing for your first clinical course, so line up the preceptor for that course before the summer fills.
If you are called to campus
USI sits at 8600 University Boulevard, Evansville, IN 47712, on Highway 62 (the Lloyd Expressway) west of Evansville and east of Mt. Vernon, Indiana. Visitors start at the Fuquay Welcome Center, and the campus runs on Central Time, which matters if you are driving in from an Eastern Time state.
Nursing sits in the Health Professions Center. The Dean of the Kinney College, the Assistant Dean of Nursing and most nursing faculty work on its second floor, and the Graduate Nursing Program office is Health Professions Center 2089. Travel to campus is on you, just as the handbook makes personal travel a requirement for every clinical course, so give yourself room in the budget and the calendar.
Why USI students plan their clinicals with us
Campus checks confirm what happens at your clinical site, and that site is where we do our work. USI students choose us because we find preceptors who fit their USI course close to home, explain the faculty calls, site visits and feedback forms before the preceptor commits, and send the packet details back typed and complete, comfortably ahead of the 6-week deadline.
We plan Fall, Spring and Summer together, keep your clinical schedule realistic around any intensive, simulation or campus day your syllabi add, and stay on call to replace a preceptor who steps away. Our how it works page lays out the steps; the form below reaches the placement desk.
Questions USI students ask
Does USI's online MSN require an on-campus residency?
No fixed residency or immersion is published for the MSN tracks or the post-master's certificates, which USI describes as online. The catalog and handbook do allow faculty to require a campus visit to demonstrate clinical competency, so check every clinical syllabus for a visit or demonstration and plan around it early.
Are the USI DNP intensives held on campus?
They are virtual and synchronous. The Graduate Nursing Handbook describes virtual educational intensives for both the BSN-to-DNP and the post-MSN DNP and says attendance at each one is mandated. The post-MSN DNP program pages schedule them twice a year, so block the dates in your work calendar as soon as they are announced.
What is a site visit simulation at USI?
USI's Clinical Roles page lists demonstrating clinical competency in site visit simulations, as indicated in syllabi, among student duties. The page does not set one standard format, so your course syllabus describes what the simulation involves, when it takes place and how faculty score it. Ask course faculty early if the syllabus leaves questions.
Will USI faculty visit my clinical site?
They can. Faculty schedule site visits as needed, and they also confirm competency through conference calls with you and your preceptor and, at times, video recordings. Let your preceptor know at the first meeting that faculty contact is part of the arrangement, so a visit or call never comes as a surprise.
Where is the USI nursing program on campus?
Nursing is in the Health Professions Center on USI's Evansville campus, 8600 University Boulevard. Most nursing faculty work on its second floor, and the Graduate Nursing Program office is Health Professions Center 2089. Campus visits begin at the Fuquay Welcome Center, and Evansville is on Central Time.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against USI's own bulletin, program pages and Graduate Nursing Handbook. Your handbook, course faculty and the Nursing Clinical Coordinator have the final word.
- University of Southern Indiana, 2026-2027 Graduate Bulletin: MSN Family Nurse Practitioner
- University of Southern Indiana, Graduate Nursing Handbook: University Clinical Requirements and Clinical Evaluation
- University of Southern Indiana, Graduate Nursing Handbook: BSN-DNP and Post MSN-DNP
- University of Southern Indiana, Visiting Campus
USI makes the search your job. We make it the easy part.
Tell us your USI track, your city and your next clinical semester. We find preceptors who fit the NRSG course and fill the Preceptor Packet and Clinical Education Agreement request with typed, complete details, well before USI's 6-week window.
- Preceptors matched to the course: family primary care for FNP, acute care teams for AGACNP, PMHNPs and psychiatrists for PMHNP
- Preceptor license, certification, years of practice and the site's agreement signer ready for the packet
- Fall, Spring and Summer planned together, close to home in a state USI enrolls
Start your placement plan
Track, city and clinical start is all we need to begin.