How Wisconsin RNs set up an Excelsior practice experience
Excelsior University does not hand its graduate nursing students a mentor, a site, or a project. In Wisconsin you assemble all three yourself, and this state has a deep bench of master's prepared nurses in non-bedside roles.
Three approvals, and the university gives you none of them
A practice experience is three approvals, not one. You need a mentor who is master's prepared with expertise in your specialization, a site willing to sign an affiliation agreement with Excelsior, and an independent project your faculty reviewer approves. Miss one and the other two stop mattering.
Excelsior states that no clinical instruction is provided in its School of Nursing programs. For the graduate specializations that is the model, not a technicality: you nominate a mentor, faculty approves or declines, and nobody at the university calls a Wisconsin health system for you.
A practice experience is not a clinical rotation and it is not direct patient care. Excelsior's graduate degrees are indirect care, in nursing education, nursing informatics, and nursing leadership and administration of health care systems, so your hours go into curriculum, data and workflow, or quality and operations. How a practice experience differs draws the line.
One scope note: this page is for the graduate specializations and the RN-to-BS practice experience. Excelsior arranges clinical placement for its prelicensure Hybrid BSN in St. Petersburg, Florida, and for its associate degree program.
An unusually strong state for an informatics mentor
Most students start at the nearest hospital, which in Wisconsin leaves the best option on the table if you are in informatics. Epic Systems is headquartered in Verona, outside Madison, and years of hiring there and at the Epic-focused consultancies around Dane County have moved many graduate-prepared nurses into health-IT roles.
Ask for a title, not a department: the nursing professional development specialist, the clinical informaticist, the director of nursing practice, the quality improvement lead. A charge nurse with a BSN will not clear faculty review. Treat the list below as a call list, since each organization sets its own rules on hosting students. See find a mentor.
Where to start looking, by specialization
- Education: staff development offices at Froedtert, Aurora Health Care, Ascension Wisconsin, and Children's Wisconsin, plus nursing faculty at UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Eau Claire, Marquette, Alverno College, Concordia University Wisconsin, Viterbo University in La Crosse, Bellin College in Green Bay, and technical colleges such as Madison College.
- Informatics: clinical informatics teams at UW Health and SSM Health in Madison, Marshfield Clinic Health System, and Bellin Health in Green Bay, the health-IT employers around Verona and Madison, and WISHIN, the state health information exchange organization.
- Leadership and administration: nurse managers, directors, and patient safety leaders at ThedaCare in the Fox Valley, Gundersen in La Crosse, Aspirus in Wausau, Mayo Clinic Health System in the west, and the Milwaukee VA Medical Center, plus systems across Milwaukee, Kenosha, Racine, and Appleton.
- Public health: the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, the City of Milwaukee Health Department, Public Health Madison and Dane County, and county health departments including Brown, Waukesha, and La Crosse. Smaller agencies often answer fastest.
Licensure, the compact, and why the host will look you up
Registered nurses here are licensed by the Board of Nursing, inside the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services in Madison. RN credentials renew at the end of February in even-numbered years through the state LicensE portal, with a fee, a nursing workforce survey, and a declaration of your primary state of residency.
Wisconsin joined the Enhanced Nurse Licensure Compact effective December 11, 2017, and in April 2022 the statutory references were updated to read Nurse Licensure Compact. If Wisconsin is your primary state of residency you can hold a multistate license here; if you live in another compact state and hold one, that privilege generally extends to Wisconsin. Rules change, so confirm at nursecompact.com and with the Board.
This matters because the host verifies. DSPS runs an online licensure verification service, and a hospital education office, a nursing dean, or a county health officer will look you up before signing. The agency is admitting a licensed nurse even when the project never touches a patient. Check your expiration against your capstone term before committing to a start month, and if your mentor sits across the line in Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, or Michigan, read out of state practice experience first.
The affiliation agreement is where placements stall
The agreement is a contract between Excelsior and the host, and it moves at the host's speed. At a large Wisconsin system it goes to legal or an academic partnerships office and can sit for weeks. At a county health department, a technical college nursing program, or a community clinic, one director often has authority to say yes, which is why smaller sites beat larger ones to a signature.
Ask one question early: does an agreement with Excelsior already exist here? Many Wisconsin organizations have hosted Excelsior students before, and an existing contract may need only a renewal signature instead of fresh legal review. Start eight to twelve weeks out for a large system, and find out on the first call who actually signs. Our side is in affiliation agreement and how it works.
Compliance runs through CastleBranch: background screening, immunization records, document tracking. Expect the host to layer its own onboarding on top, including badge access, respiratory season requirements, and HIPAA modules. See CastleBranch compliance and student liability insurance.
135 hours, counted in weeks
Each MS in Nursing capstone carries 135 practice-experience hours alongside the independent project. On a Wisconsin term calendar that is roughly ten hours a week, or about seventeen full days, stacked on a working RN schedule. RN-to-BS students owe about 90 hours, split across two 45-hour courses; same problem at a smaller scale, since you still have to find the person, the place, and the project. RN-to-BS practice experience covers that track.
Hours only count once the mentor, site, and project are approved. Logging time before faculty signs off is the costliest mistake here, because those hours generally do not come back. Practice experience hours and capstone project have the detail. Excelsior's bachelor's and master's nursing programs are accredited by ACEN, with Middle States accreditation institutionally.
Distance, remote arrangements, and where we come in
Wisconsin is wide. Superior to Kenosha is most of a day, and a student in Rhinelander does not have the options a student in Wauwatosa has. Indirect care work travels well: curriculum revision, an EHR workflow analysis, a retention dashboard, a policy rewrite. Much of it happens at a laptop with scheduled contact. We will not tell you it counts, though. That call belongs to your site and your Excelsior faculty reviewer, in writing, before you begin.
If you would rather not spend two months emailing strangers, that is our job. We source and vet a master's prepared Wisconsin mentor matched to your specialization, work the site and the agreement, and stay on it until faculty has a nomination in hand. We do not guarantee placement and cannot approve anything on Excelsior's behalf. Get matched, or see cost and, if the clock is short, need a mentor fast.
Answered
Will Excelsior assign me a mentor in Wisconsin?
No. In the graduate specializations and the RN-to-BS practice experience, you find the mentor, secure the site, and propose the project. Excelsior states that no clinical instruction is provided in its School of Nursing programs, and faculty review the nomination you bring rather than supply one. That review is a real gate.
Does my mentor have to work at a hospital?
No. A master's prepared nurse at a university nursing program, a technical college, a county health department, or a health-IT employer can qualify, provided the expertise matches your specialization. For an informatics student here, a clinical informaticist in the Madison area often fits better than anyone on a hospital unit. See mentor vs preceptor.
I hold a Minnesota multistate license and just moved to Eau Claire. What changes?
If Wisconsin has become your primary state of residency, you apply for a Wisconsin license, and the compact expects that promptly after the move. Until residency changes, a valid multistate license from another compact state generally covers practice here. Residency turns on specific facts, so confirm with the Board before a site runs your verification.
Is this the same as bedside clinical work?
No. A practice experience is not a clinical rotation and it is not direct patient care. You work alongside a master's prepared nurse on an indirect care project in education, informatics, quality, or operations, and produce something the site can use. A curriculum redesign or a documentation workflow audit fits; a week of shadowing generally does not.
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