Loyola University New Orleans MSN-DNP Executive Leader: project site, preceptor and 1,000 hours

Updated September 25, 2026 · Reviewed by the Loyola Preceptor placement team

Loyola New Orleans offers nursing leadership only as the online MSN-DNP Executive Leader, and its practicums are DNP Scholarly Project courses placed at an organization you choose. You pick the project site, line up a qualified preceptor, and combine those hours with verified MSN hours to reach 1,000 supervised graduate hours. Here is how the plan, the preceptor rules and the paperwork fit together.

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1,000supervised graduate practicum hours, MSN hours included

540hours across the three scholarly project courses

Numbered steps. Paperwork for the project practicums: 1 Confirm the organization's agreement; 2 Sign the project agreement; 3 Submit the Wishlist; 4 Keep compliance current; 5 Start at Placement Approved. — Paperwork for the project practicums: 1 Confirm the organization's agreement; 2 Sign the project agreement; 3 Submit the Wishlist; 4 Keep compliance current; 5 Start at Placement Approved.

The program at a glance

The Executive Leader track is online and asynchronous, starts in Fall, Spring or Summer, and totals 30 or more credits. The exact figure comes from a transcript review that credits the supervised practicum hours from your MSN. The posted two-year plan starts in Fall I, ends in Summer II and adds up to 30 credits, growing only when elective practicum hours are needed. That plan carries a 2024 date, so check the plan of study you were given for the current version.

Loyola lists no stand-alone master's in nursing leadership; leadership lives in this post-master's doctorate. The program page names no certification exam for the track, which matches its design as a leadership DNP rather than an APRN specialty.

One admission point deserves an early question. Loyola's program page and its online admission page both request proof of NP certification or licensure, yet the bulletin's list of Executive Leader requirements has no such item. Nurse leaders without NP credentials should ask admissions which list governs before applying.

Where the 1,000 hours come from

Every Loyola DNP graduate needs 1,000 supervised graduate practicum hours. For Executive Leader students, part of that total arrives with you. Hours from your MSN or post-graduate certificate go onto the Verification of MSN Specialty Hours, and the DNP Program Director reads that form to decide whether you owe more.

The three scholarly project courses add 540 hours. Any remaining shortfall is made up in NURS G965 DNP Practicum, an elective of 1 to 4 credits whose hours depend on the credits you take. The 1,000-hour page explains the verification step in more depth.

Practicums in Loyola's posted Executive Leader plan
Term	Course	Hours
Summer I or Spring II	`NURS G965` DNP Practicum (elective, only if needed)	Set by credits (1 to 4)
Fall II	`NURS G939` DNP Scholarly Project I: Planning and Proposal	180
Spring II	`NURS G942` DNP Scholarly Project II: Implementation	180
Summer II	`NURS G944` DNP Scholarly Project III: Evaluation and Dissemination	180

Each project course carries 180 hours, which Loyola's DNP letter puts at about 12 hours a week, counting 60 hours per credit. Your first practicum falls in term 4, or in term 3 when NURS G965 is part of your plan.

Choosing a project site as a nurse leader

Loyola's DNP practicum requirements letter leaves the choice of site to you. Its sample settings range widely, from ethics committees and departments of health to CDC programs, health policy internships, professional nursing associations and healthcare organizations themselves. Whatever you pick has to serve the course outcomes and the DNP Essentials.

For an executive track, strong sites are organizations where a leadership problem is real and measurable, and where someone senior will stay with you across three terms. A project planned in Fall II has to be implemented in Spring II and evaluated in Summer II, so the organization needs enough stability to host all three phases, through budget cycles and leadership changes.

The letter's practical advice is to begin early and keep a second preceptor possibility alive. Build a first choice and a backup side by side, especially when the first organization has never signed an agreement with Loyola. The scholarly project practicums page covers the three courses in detail.

Who can serve as your project preceptor

The DNP letter describes who fits: chief officers, vice presidents of patient care, directors, nursing and organizational administrators, and clinicians such as APRNs and physicians. Whoever you choose must be licensed, without encumbrance, in the state where the project hours happen, must supervise every one of those hours directly, and must give constructive feedback.

Two exclusions shape an executive student's search more than any other. The preceptor cannot be a family member, and cannot be your employer or your direct supervisor. Each semester, your preceptor and your Loyola scholarly project advisor also talk at least once, by Zoom or phone, so choose someone who will keep that appointment.

One document, the DNP Scholarly Project Preceptor-Student Agreement, spans all three project courses and carries three signatures: yours, the preceptor's and a Loyola faculty member's. A single well-chosen preceptor therefore carries the whole project.

Your direct supervisor or employer cannot serve as your DNP project preceptor under Loyola's DNP letter; settle who will precept before you pitch a project to your own organization.

Running the project where you work

Loyola's documents pull in two directions here. Under the DNP letter, an employer or direct supervisor is ruled out as preceptor. The Employed at Clinical Site Attestation, meanwhile, permits practicum hours at your own workplace when they take place away from your own department and outside your working hours; you, your supervisor and your preceptor or facilitator each sign it.

Read together, a project inside your own health system can work, but the preceptor comes from outside your reporting line and the project hours sit clearly apart from your paid role. Put the plan in front of the DNP Program Director and your scholarly project advisor before you commit, because the FNP guide mentions only relatives as a bar and the three documents do not line up perfectly.

The workplace practicum page walks through the attestation form and who signs it.

Paperwork for the project practicums

Confirm the organization's agreementLook the organization up in Exxat's Explore Clinical Locations map. An organization new to Loyola signs the current Standard Loyola Affiliation Agreement, a 2026-27 form with a three-year term. When a site rewrites it or insists on its own contract, review can stretch over months, which is why a backup site matters.
Sign the project agreementYour project preceptor, you and Loyola faculty sign the DNP Scholarly Project Preceptor-Student Agreement covering all three project courses.
Submit the WishlistIn Exxat, enter the organization, address, contact person and authorized legal signer, then upload the preceptor's CV, license and the agreement Loyola uses for scholarly project practicums.
Keep compliance currentRequired Documents in Exxat must stay up to date, or a compliance hold keeps you from registering for the course.
Start at Placement ApprovedThe bulletin is strict here: project hours logged before every party has signed the affiliation agreement are lost, and you could be asked to retake the course.

Loyola advises allowing at least three months for the whole sequence. The affiliation agreements page covers the contract side.

Why Executive Leader students choose us

A DNP project site search is a pitch: you are asking a senior leader to supervise you for three terms. We run that pitch for you. We identify organizations near you where your project topic fits, then approach administrators, directors and chief officers who meet Loyola's DNP rules and sit outside your own reporting line.

We ask the questions that protect the project later. Can this person stay from Fall II through Summer II? Will they meet your project advisor each semester? Does the organization already hold a Loyola affiliation agreement, and if not, who signs? Then we assemble the CV, license and signed project agreement for your Wishlist, with a second option ready in case the first stalls.

The DNP Program Director, your faculty and Loyola's placement office approve the site and preceptor; we make sure the file they open is complete and on Loyola's terms from the start. Tell us your term and the kind of project you have in mind using the form below.

Questions Loyola students ask

Does Loyola assign DNP project sites for Executive Leader students?

No. Loyola's DNP practicum requirements letter hands the choice of project site to the student, as long as it serves the course outcomes and DNP Essentials, and urges an early start with a backup preceptor in mind. Loyola's placement office then handles the affiliation agreement and the Exxat review once you bring a site forward.

How many practicum hours does the MSN-DNP Executive Leader require?

You need 1,000 supervised graduate practicum hours overall. Verified MSN or certificate hours count toward it, the three scholarly project courses add 540, and NURS G965 covers any shortfall. The DNP Program Director sets how many more hours you need after reviewing your verification form.

Can my boss be my DNP project preceptor at Loyola?

Loyola's DNP letter rules out three people as your project preceptor: a relative, your employer and your direct supervisor. If your project sits inside your own organization, look for a qualified leader outside your reporting line, and talk through the Employed at Clinical Site Attestation with your program before you begin.

Is Loyola's Executive Leader program fully online?

Its courses are online and asynchronous, and Loyola Online lists it among its online nursing programs. Loyola's rules note that an online program can still include clinical practicums, and this one does: your project hours happen at the organization you choose, under your preceptor's direct supervision.

Which states can I complete Executive Leader project hours in?

Two Loyola documents govern this, the advanced practice licensure table and the School of Nursing's State Approvals Map, and they conflict for a handful of states such as Hawaii, Montana and Wyoming. Check your state on the licensure disclosures page and confirm with the School of Nursing before choosing an organization.

DNPDNP project practicumsLoyola New Orleans DNP Scholarly Project practicums G939, G942 and G944: 180 hours each, project sites, who can precept and the preceptor-student agreement.DNPDNP 1,000-hour ruleHow Loyola New Orleans counts 1,000 supervised graduate hours for the MSN-DNP: verified MSN hours, the 540 project hours and the NURS G965 elective practicum.WorkplacePracticum at your workplaceA Loyola University New Orleans practicum where you work: the Employed at Clinical Site Attestation, a separate department and hours, and the DNP employer rule.ContractsAffiliation agreementsThe Standard Loyola Affiliation Agreement for 2026-27: its three-year term, site-written contracts, months-long reviews and why early hours are forfeited.ExxatExxat Wishlist requestFiling a Loyola New Orleans placement request with the Exxat Wishlist: every field, the preceptor uploads, the signer, and what Placement Approved really means.State rulesLicensure disclosuresLoyola University New Orleans publishes a licensure table and a State Approvals Map. See both side by side and the nine places where they disagree.

Last checked 2026-09-25

We check these pages against Loyola's own bulletin, program pages, practicum guides, forms and licensure disclosures. Your plan of study, your practicum guide, your program director and the Clinical Practicum Coordinator have the final word.

Loyola asks you to select your own preceptor and site. We make that the easy part.

Tell us your Loyola program, where you live and which term your next practicum starts. We find preceptors whose patients fit the course, check whether the site already has a Loyola affiliation agreement, and prepare everything your Exxat Wishlist needs.

Preceptors matched to the course: outpatient primary care for NURS G823, pediatrics and obstetrics for NURS G829, acute care for NURS G902, psychiatric care for NURS G856
Preceptor CV, license and Nursys PDF, the Preceptor Agreement and the site's signer details ready for the Wishlist
In your own community, in Louisiana or any state where Loyola approves your practicum

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