The Lewis Clinical Placement Office and how to work with it

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

Lewis's MSN FAQ names the Clinical Placement Office as the facilitator of the NP placement cycle and your "primary point of contact." It fields contract portal questions, receives copies of agency paperwork, and works beside the track coordinators and faculty who approve each preceptor. Here is what the office does, who sits in it, and how to bring it requests it can act on quickly.

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Who works in the office: Director Clinical Placements and Community Partnerships, in ; Scheduling and Clinical Compliance Coordinator, in the same ; Administrative Assistants, Clinical Placement Office, in the; Two Coordinator of Clinical Placements positions and a Commu.

Where the office fits between you and approval

Lewis divides the NP placement cycle three ways. You identify a preceptor and site and keep the communication moving, as described on identifying preceptors. Clinical Coordinators and/or track lead faculty decide whether that match fits your course, the subject of preceptor and site approval. The Clinical Placement Office sits between the two, facilitating and taking your questions.

The contract status legend adds a fourth party it calls "administration," which receives contract requests, reviews them and drafts affiliation agreements when an agency has none. Lewis does not publish an internal chart of who handles each step, so treat the office as your front door for all of it. A question about a portal request, an agency's paperwork or where a contract stands starts there.

Who works in the office

Lewis's directories list roles rather than one desk, and the titles differ between the two listings. Read together, they show a team built around placement, scheduling, compliance and agency relationships.

Titles Lewis lists (roles only)

Director Clinical Placements and Community Partnerships, in the Spring/Summer 2026 course schedule directory
Scheduling and Clinical Compliance Coordinator, in the same directory
Administrative Assistants, Clinical Placement Office, in the same directory
Two Coordinator of Clinical Placements positions and a Community Partnership Coordinator, with offices in South Hall on the Romeoville campus, on the nursing faculty and staff page
A Coordinator of Clinical Placement and Community Partnership, listed under undergraduate nursing with an office at Lewis University at Oak Brook, on the same page

Current contact details for each role are on Lewis's nursing faculty and staff page. Titles change between directory editions, so check the page before you write.

What lands on the office's desk

Lewis's public pages describe the office mostly through the tasks they send its way.

Portal questions. The contract portal tells students to direct request questions to a member of the Clinical Placement Office.
Agency documents. When an agency asks for more paperwork before clearing you, the legend has you send it to the agency and to this office, so Lewis's file stays in step with the site's.
Stalled requests. A request that has sat in review for a while, especially one waiting on a new affiliation agreement, is a fair thing to ask the office about.
Cancellations and denials. When a contract ends early, the office is where to ask what correction or new request is needed.
Out-of-state questions. Lewis's graduate policy asks students to consult an academic advisor and the relevant licensure agencies before any placement outside Illinois, and it makes sense to bring the office in at the same time.

What Lewis's pages leave to you and your track

Lewis describes the office in terms of facilitation, contracts and contact. Its public pages do not describe the office handing graduate students preceptor names, and the MSN FAQ assigns identifying preceptors to the student. That search is the part of the cycle that eats the most hours, and it is the part we take on.

Several answers students look for are not published anywhere on Lewis's site: a filing deadline, how many terms ahead to begin, and what happens if no preceptor is in place when a practicum starts. Ask the office and your track coordinator directly, and note what they tell you with the date. The who does what guide maps which Lewis role answers which kind of question.

What to have ready before you contact the office

A specific question gets a specific answer. Before you write, gather the following.

Your track, the course number (for example NURS 61100 or NURS 63300) and the semester of the practicum
The agency's name and address, and your preceptor's name and credentials if you have them
The status your request shows in the portal and the date it last changed
Any document the agency has requested, and whether it has already gone to both places
Your CastleBranch standing, since a compliance gap is a listed reason a contract can be denied

Send it from your Lewis email so the reply sits beside the portal's own notices, and keep each thread to one request.

Timing: when the office needs to hear from you

NP practicums at Lewis are 16-week semester courses, so the office's work has to finish before a fixed first day: August 24 for fall 2026, January 19 for spring 2027, May 17 for summer 2027. Contract review alone takes at least two weeks under Lewis's legend, and a new agency agreement adds a wait with no stated end.

Lewis tells NP students to begin planning practicums as soon as they are accepted. Counting back from those start dates, the office should see a complete request well before the term, which means the preceptor search has to wrap up earlier still. A term-by-term version of that plan is on start planning at acceptance.

How the placement desk works alongside the office

The office and the faculty decide; our job is to make sure what reaches them is ready. We find a preceptor and site in your community that fit the exact Lewis course, confirm the commitment, and hand you the agency and preceptor details your request needs. You file it, the office facilitates, and faculty approve.

When the office comes back with a question or an agency asks for more, we help you answer quickly, and if a preceptor drops mid-course, we find the replacement. The result is an office inbox that receives a finished request instead of a search still in progress. Request a match with the form below or through contact.

Questions Lewis students ask

Does the Lewis Clinical Placement Office find preceptors for NP students?

Lewis's MSN FAQ describes the office as a facilitator and asks NP students to identify their own preceptors, and no Lewis page describes the office supplying names to graduate students. It supports everything around your match: questions, contracts and agency paperwork. The search itself is where outside help makes the biggest difference.

How do I reach the Lewis Clinical Placement Office?

The contract portal points request questions to a member of the office, and the nursing faculty and staff page lists its roles, with offices in South Hall on the Romeoville campus, alongside current contact details. Write from your Lewis email so the conversation lives in the same inbox as the portal's notices.

Is the Clinical Placement Office the same as my track coordinator?

No. Track coordinators and track lead faculty judge whether a preceptor and site suit your course; the Clinical Placement Office facilitates and handles the contract side. Lewis lists separate coordinators for the FNP, the adult-gerontology NP tracks and the PMHNP track. Take fit questions to your track and paperwork questions to the office.

Can the office help me with a practicum outside Illinois?

Lewis's graduate policy warns that placements outside Illinois may need added permission from Lewis, the host state or Illinois licensing boards, and tells students to speak with an academic advisor and licensure agencies first. Raise it with the office and your advisor before promising a site anything; see clinicals outside Illinois.

Does the office look at my CastleBranch record?

Lewis does not say publicly who reviews compliance, but its directory lists a Scheduling and Clinical Compliance Coordinator, and the contract legend allows a denial over CastleBranch non-compliance. Keep the record complete and current, and copy the office on any document an agency asks you for, as the legend directs.

Lewis systemIdentifying preceptorsLewis expects NP students to identify their own preceptors. The full FAQ passage, what each line asks of you, and how to do the search well or hand it to us.Lewis systemPreceptor and site approvalWho approves a Lewis NP preceptor and clinical site, what a good fit looks like for each practicum, and the separate clearance your agency gives afterward.Lewis systemContract portal and statusesHow Lewis's Requests for Initiation of Agency Contracts portal works: your account, the request, and all eight contract statuses in Lewis's own words.Lewis systemWho does whatEvery Lewis role that touches an NP practicum, from the Clinical Placement Office to track coordinators and course faculty, and which one to ask about what.Lewis systemPlanning from acceptanceLewis tells NP students to start practicum planning upon acceptance. A term-by-term timeline that works backward from the first day of each 16-week practicum.

Last checked 2026-09-25

We check these pages against Lewis's own catalog, program pages and FAQ, its contract portal and Illinois law. Your course, your track coordinator and the Clinical Placement Office have the final word.

Lewis asks you to identify your preceptor. We do the searching.

Tell us your Lewis program, where you live and when your next practicum starts. We find preceptors near you who fit the course and prepare every detail the contract portal asks for, so your request goes in complete.

Preceptors matched to the practicum: primary care for NURS 61100 and NURS 61800, acute care for NURS 62500, psychiatric care for NURS 63300
Preceptor, license and site details ready for your preceptor contract request
In your own community, anywhere Lewis enrolls you and your RN license is valid

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