Your UC Clinical Site Coordinator: what the role covers and what stays with you

What UC means by a Clinical Site Coordinator

Clinical Site Coordinator is UC's own title, and together the coordinators make up the Clinical Site Coordination team. UC's clinical planning glossary and Key Contacts page give them a defined remit: vet and approve preceptors and clinical sites, process placement paperwork, handle affiliation agreements and give students access to eMedley.

Every graduate track has an assigned coordinator, and from your first placement question to the day your site is cleared, that person is your route into UC. The 2026–27 Student Handbook says all placement communication goes through the assigned Clinical Site Coordination Team member, who works with you toward an approved placement.

The CSC works beside other UC roles rather than replacing them. Your faculty advisor or program director decides whether a site suits the course, and for UC Online programs, Student Success Coordinators serve as your academic advisors.

What your CSC takes care of

• Vetting and approval. Checking each preceptor and site against UC's rules and approving them. The approval reaches you as a welcome email.
• Paperwork in the order it arrives. UC's 2022 clinical expectations document says coordinators process files in the order received, one reason an early packet helps.
• The agreement. Supplying UC's standard Educational Affiliation Agreement, sending it to whoever handles contracts at the site, and putting it in place.
• School documents for onboarding. The Letter of Good Standing, liability and malpractice verification, and a compliance summary when a site asks for one.
• eMedley access. Setting you up in the system where you log hours and collect evaluations.
• Options when you're stuck. Talking through sites that may be outside your preferred area, and passing along past UC preceptors and graduates based in your state.
• Obstacles along the way. Helping you work through problems that come up before and during placement.

Several of these have their own pages here: the affiliation agreement, site onboarding and what UC does when your search stalls.

What stays with you

The search itself. UC's Key Contacts page expects you to find and secure a preceptor who meets the mandatory requirements, and the coordinator doesn't open a search for you unless your own has run out. Students report the same thing on public forums, describing UC as able to make some connections but not to place them close to home.

Your coordinator also can't bend UC's limits. Per the handbook, placements are limited and carry no promise of your preferred area; your job, housing and family commitments don't factor into them; and if you decline a placement the college arranges, it doesn't have to offer a second one.

And the file only moves when your pieces are in. Your section of the Preceptor Application, the site's onboarding modules and your CastleBranch items are yours to finish, and the coordinator can't approve around a gap in any of them.

Other UC offices and roles you'll hear about

• Office of Clinical Placement and Operations. Sets the Critical Requirements deadlines you meet in CastleBranch. The handbook also refers to a Senior Assistant Dean for Clinical Placement and Operations.
• Faculty advisor or program director. Approves whether a site or preceptor is appropriate for the course and signs off on track exceptions, such as a midwifery student precepting at their own workplace.
• Course faculty. Reach out to you and your preceptor once the rotation starts, and confer with you both at least twice a semester.
• Student Success Coordinators. Academic advisors for UC Online programs, and the people to ask about your plan of study if a clinical course has to move.
• Shared mailboxes. UC names two you may need: constateauth@uc.edu, for the extra state paperwork California, North Dakota and Wyoming require, and conemedley@uc.edu, for eMedley login or account-merge trouble.

Which coordinator covers your track

UC's Clinical Planning page and the May 2026 Preceptor Guide list four coordinators, each covering a group of programs. Assignments change, so take names and contact details from the current listing on UC's page.

• One coordinator covers AGACNP, AGPCNP, the FNP post-master's certificate and FNP DNP, and Neonatal NP.
• One covers the FNP MSN and Nursing Education.
• One covers Nurse-Midwifery, Pediatric Acute Care NP and WHNP.
• One covers PMHNP, Public Health, Systems Leadership and Occupational Health.

The Clinical Planning page and the Key Contacts page put Pediatric Acute Care NP under different coordinators. If you're in PNP-AC, confirm who yours is before you send a packet or an outreach question. FNP students should check too: the FNP MSN sits with a different coordinator from the FNP certificate and FNP DNP.

Working well with your CSC

• Write rather than call. UC's expectations document treats email as the primary channel and asks you to allow three business days for a reply.
• Ask before approaching the big systems. Clear Allina, Cleveland Clinic, Essentia, Nationwide Children's, Norton, The Little Clinic, Stanford Health Care and Summa Health with your CSC first.
• Confirm the packet address. UC documents give more than one destination for the Preceptor Application, so use whichever your CSC names.
• Send complete details once. Your track, the term, the preceptor's credentials and the site's administrative contact in one message saves a round of follow-up.
• Speak up early. A preceptor who withdraws or a site that wants its own contract changes your timeline, so tell your coordinator as soon as you know.
• Read the welcome email closely. It may mention added requirements from the site.

Students bring us in upstream of all this. We find a preceptor and site that fit your track, gather the credentials and the site's administrative contact, and help you finish your section of the Preceptor Application, so your coordinator gets one complete message instead of a string of follow-ups. Your CSC vets and approves, and we hand over a file built for that review. Tell us your track and term to start.