Grades, Incompletes and time limits in Southeastern's graduate nursing programs

The grading scale nursing uses

Southeastern's graduate catalog uses standard letters: A earns 4 quality points per semester hour, B earns 3, C 2, D 1 and F none, alongside P, W, I for Incomplete, and IP for thesis courses only. The consortium student handbook, which governs MSN and certificate courses, converts course percentages to letters this way:

The Graduate School's general rule lets up to six hours of C grades count toward graduation. Nursing sets a higher bar: the catalog says a graduate nursing student must earn a B in each course to be eligible to progress, so for nursing the six-hour allowance does not help.

When a clinical evaluation becomes an F

For courses with a clinical component, the consortium handbook states that an unsatisfactory final evaluation by a preceptor or a faculty member will result in an F. The 2018-19 DNP handbook words its practicum rule more softly: an unsatisfactory final evaluation may result in an F. Set beside the catalog's dismissal rule for D and F grades, the final clinical evaluation is the highest-stakes grade in an MSN clinical course.

Preceptors shape that evaluation but do not own it. Under the consortium's faculty handbook, the preceptor completes a clinical evaluation form at the end of the semester and notifies faculty immediately if a student's performance is in question. Louisiana's board rule keeps the evaluation itself with nursing faculty, with input from preceptors, and requires faculty to confer with each preceptor and student at least weekly during the precepted experience.

One more gate can end a clinical semester early: a student who does not provide the required evidence of clinical health requirements cannot remain enrolled in any clinical nursing course. The compliance guide lists those records.

Time limits and staying enrolled

A master's student must complete every requirement within the six years immediately before the date the requirements are finished, and the dean of the program can grant an extension for extenuating circumstances. Southeastern's graduate nursing page states the same limit as six years from initial course enrollment.

The 2018-19 DNP handbook gives DNP students six calendar years from admission and lets them sit out, taking no courses, for up to two consecutive semesters. The current catalog reads more strictly: a student who does not enroll in graduate nursing courses for two consecutive regular semesters must reapply to the program. Follow the catalog, and talk with your advisor before planning any break.

Clinical delays are where these limits start to bite. Each semester lost to a missing preceptor pushes the rest of the clinical sequence back, and on the MSN PMHNP plan, where each psychiatric course is marked fall only or spring only, a missed term can mean a year's wait for the course to come around again. The placement desk exists for that risk: your placement advisor starts on the next course's preceptor while you are still in the current one, so the sequence keeps moving.

Academic integrity reaches clinical records

The catalog makes upholding academic integrity the student's responsibility and names unauthorized material, communicating with classmates during an exam and trying to benefit from another student's work as violations; egregious or repeated cases can bring judicial sanctions. The consortium adopts a zero-tolerance policy covering cheating, plagiarism, self-plagiarism and fabrication, and it names clinical and practicum experiences among the places those rules apply. Students also sign an honor pledge that they have neither given nor received unauthorized aid.

That brings clinical hour records under the same standard as exams. Hours must be recorded as they happened, and time you are paid to work never counts as clinical time, even at your own employer. The guide to clinicals where you work explains that rule.

If you disagree with a grade or an evaluation, the consortium handbook sets out a five-step formal complaint procedure, and its first step has to be taken within five working days of the situation.