Tennessee practicum for Liberty students: open, with a new law to watch

Tennessee on Liberty's lookup

Liberty doesn't close Tennessee to any nursing program. The table reflects the lookup as checked in September 2026.

An older School of Nursing admissions page, last modified in 2023, says the DNP was approved for practicum only in Maryland, Tennessee and Virginia. The current lookup replaces it.

The 2026 bill on out-of-state nursing programs

Lawmakers styled SB 2013/HB 1905 as Tennessee Nursing Education Integrity and Oversight Act. Central to it is an order to the Board of Nursing: set up a two-year moratorium. While it runs, nursing programs based in other states can get no application accepted or approved, whether the goal is to operate in Tennessee, to enroll students in the state or to send students to clinicals there. APRN, RN-BSN and pre-licensure programs all fall under it alike.

Programs holding approval from before the effective date keep it, on condition that they produce data on request, for example preceptor lists and placement statistics. The Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement has until June 30, 2027 to recommend new standards covering programs from outside Tennessee that rely on its preceptors or sites. Per one secondary source, the law's start date was April 27, 2026, and our research has yet to confirm official enactment. Nor does any Board rule currently on record expressly oblige an outside program to secure approval ahead of its students' clinical start.

We found nothing showing how Liberty stands under the bill. Liberty's lookup still lists Tennessee as approved, and that is the page your placement follows.

Your license: Tennessee joined the compact in 2018

January 19, 2018 is when Tennessee started taking part in the Nurse Licensure Compact. Two credentials satisfy Liberty's rule here: an RN license issued by Tennessee itself, or a multistate license held through any other compact member, Virginia included. If your home-state license is single-state, you'd need a Tennessee license first; the RN license guide walks through it.

The THA preceptor incentive and Liberty students

Money for the Nurse Preceptor Incentive Program comes from a state grant. The Tennessee Hospital Association shares its administration, and the other partner in running it is the Tennessee Center for Health Workforce Development. Once a preceptor's one-to-one precepting time reaches 70 hours or more within a cycle, a payment for that cycle follows, provided grant funds have not run dry.

To qualify, a preceptor is an APRN, RN or LPN holding an unrestricted multistate or Tennessee license, is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, and finishes the UTHSC preceptor course. That course includes its own NP module.

Its core audience is students in accredited Tennessee programs, though seven other states appear on the list as well. For students from schools in Virginia, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri or Kentucky, hours count provided they take place in Tennessee. Liberty is based in Lynchburg, Virginia, so on the program's published wording, hours a Liberty student completes in Tennessee appear to qualify. THA makes the call, and payments stop when funds run out. For Fall 2026, the cycle is August 1 to December 1, and documentation is due December 10, 2026.

Supervised practice, systems and cross-border metros

AANP places Tennessee in its restricted category. NPs there work with physician supervision, with caps on opioid supply and limits on Schedule II to IV prescribing. That is the setting a Tennessee NP preceptor works in.

Ballad Health and Erlanger are two of Tennessee's largest systems; Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Covenant Health and Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare belong in that same tier. Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga are the main metros. Memphis crosses into Arkansas and Mississippi, and Chattanooga crosses into Georgia, and a site across those lines counts as that state's practicum, with its own Liberty page to read.

Why Tennessee students choose us

Tennessee's rules are in motion, and we search with the current picture in view. We find Tennessee preceptors and sites that fit your Liberty track and, where a preceptor asks, point them to the THA program's own rules. Liberty approves every site and preceptor, and the practicum team has the final word on how the new law applies. Contact us with your city and start term.