Tennessee: UofM nursing on home ground
Tennessee is where the Loewenberg College of Nursing is based, and UofM says all of its programs meet the state's licensing requirements. In the online MSN, practicums happen close to wherever you live, from Shelby County to Knoxville and Chattanooga, and the moratorium bill aimed at nursing programs from other states exempts schools based in Tennessee, UofM included.
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Tell us your UofM program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your UofM course.
Every UofM program, from a Tennessee address
For Tennessee residents, UofM's state rules raise no puzzle. The Office of Community Partnerships and Practice includes Tennessee on its list of states where LCON offers its programs, UofM Global states that every program meets Tennessee's licensing requirements, and the state-by-state licensure disclosures skip Tennessee entirely because it is home.
| Program | Status for Tennessee residents | Note |
|---|---|---|
| MSN: FNP, AG-ACNP, PMHNP | Home state; UofM says its programs meet Tennessee licensing requirements | Online courses, practicums near home, up to three short on-campus intensives |
| MSN: Nursing Education, Nursing Leadership | Home state | Online courses plus two immersion courses completed locally |
| Graduate certificates, all five areas | Home state | Same practicum or immersion courses as the matching MSN |
| Traditional BSN | Campus program in Memphis or at Lambuth | UofM assigns clinical placements |
| Accelerated BSN | Campus program with a Fall start | 16 months; UofM assigns clinical placements |
| RN to BSN | Online through UofM Global | 7-week courses; the community health course includes patient care |
The table shows how each program is built for someone living in Tennessee. It is not an admission decision, which rests with UofM alone, and graduate applicants from Tennessee meet the same entry rules as everyone else, RN licensure included.
Board approval and the rules behind your preceptor
UofM's nursing programs answer to the Tennessee Board of Nursing, which sets curriculum minimums for schools in every delivery format, online included, and reviews approval each year. On the board's February 2026 school list, UofM's three BSN tracks and its graduate tracks and post-master's certificates all show full approval. CCNE accreditation runs through June 30, 2030 for the bachelor's, master's and post-graduate APRN certificate programs; the accreditation guide has the rest.
The AANP files Tennessee under restricted practice. A nurse practitioner who diagnoses and prescribes needs a certificate of fitness beyond the base APRN certificate, and must register a collaborating physician with the board, along with a formulary. That physician reviews a share of the NP's charts and stays reachable for consults, so expect protocols and physician check-ins to be part of ordinary clinic days.
The state also sets a floor for whoever teaches you. Nursing faculty direct every student clinical experience, with the preceptor contributing inside that plan, and the preceptor needs proven competence plus an unencumbered license, valid where they practice, at your target level or above. The Tennessee NP practice guide covers each layer in depth.
One RN license across three states
The Nurse Licensure Compact counts all three metro states as members: Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. With a multistate RN license, a nurse whose home state is Tennessee can work as a registered nurse in either neighbor, a real advantage in a metro that stretches into DeSoto County and West Memphis.
UofM wants your RN license unrestricted and valid either in Tennessee or in the approved state that hosts your clinicals, and it has to stay unrestricted until you finish. The compact stops at the RN level. The separate APRN Compact has no Tennessee enactment, so once you hold national certification, NP authority comes state by state. The RN license guide walks through UofM's wording.
The out-of-state moratorium, read from UofM's side
The Tennessee Nursing Education Integrity and Oversight Act, filed as Senate Bill 2013 with House companion HB 1905, directs the Board of Nursing to pause for two years the acceptance and approval of applications from nursing programs located in other states that want to operate in Tennessee, enroll students here or send them to Tennessee clinical sites. Its findings describe a significant number of such programs placing clinical students in the state with too little oversight, and call for a pause while new standards take shape.
The exemption is written for schools like UofM. A program counts as based in Tennessee when it has a physical Tennessee campus or facility plus three or more full-time licensed nursing faculty working on site. LCON teaches in Memphis and at Lambuth in Jackson under full board approval, so its students' Tennessee practicums carry on under that standing, with no new application involved.
Programs from elsewhere that were approved before the act keep their approval but may be asked for preceptor lists and placement figures, and the Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement owes recommended standards for them by June 30, 2027. The law's enactment and start date are the board's to confirm, so ask it directly if timing matters to your plans.
Two campuses and a fully online MSN
In Memphis, the college has worked since 2015 from the Community Health Building, where simulation suites, skills and assessment labs and a mock home let students rehearse care before touching a patient. The Lambuth campus in Jackson has trained nurses since 2012, and its nursing building, Sprague Hall, arrived in 2022 with its own simulation rooms and virtual reality equipment.
The Traditional BSN admits students to one of those two home campuses, and UofM assigns their clinical placements. The MSN follows another model: coursework is fully online, and the NP tracks add only a handful of campus days, at most three visits across the program, none longer than three days, each scheduled half a year or more in advance. The January 2027 visit is mandatory for FNP, AG-ACNP and PMHNP students alike. UofM's schedule leaves the host campus unstated, so confirm the location before you book travel; the intensives guide follows the schedule.
Where Tennessee's online UofM students train
With practicums set near home, a Tennessee MSN student's options depend on region, since each has its own health systems and student intake rules. The systems below are examples of where Tennessee NPs practice, offered to help you picture the ground.
- Memphis and Shelby County. Of the Memphis metro's roughly 1.34 million residents, about 1.02 million live on the Tennessee side. Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Baptist Memorial Health Care, Regional One Health and community health centers such as Christ Community Health Services all operate here. More in the Memphis guide.
- Jackson and West Tennessee. The Lambuth region, served by West Tennessee Healthcare, along with a wide spread of rural West Tennessee counties from Haywood and Hardeman up to Lake. More in the Jackson guide.
- Nashville and Middle Tennessee. The largest metro in the state, near 2.2 million people, where Vanderbilt University Medical Center, HCA TriStar Health and Ascension Saint Thomas operate. More in the Nashville guide.
- Knoxville, Chattanooga and East Tennessee. The Knoxville metro holds about 968,000 people and Chattanooga's about 595,000 across its Tennessee and Georgia counties, with systems such as Covenant Health, Erlanger and Ballad Health. More in the East Tennessee guide.
Intake rules differ system by system. Baptist Memorial wants its graduate application a minimum of three months early, naming the preceptor on each one, Regional One wants an affiliation agreement executed before a rotation begins, and Christ Community takes nurse practitioner applications against fixed deadlines.
Access need, county by county
Federal shortage-area designations are the clearest public measure of where patients struggle to reach care. HRSA files dated September 26, 2026 list 152 designated primary care shortage areas across Tennessee, with 8 more proposed for withdrawal, and 85 designated mental health shortage areas, with 13 more proposed for withdrawal.
In Memphis, low-income primary care designations cover Frayser and Raleigh, Whitehaven and Westwood, Orange Mound and South Memphis, and Hollywood in North Memphis, and the Christ Community, Memphis Health Center and Tri State health centers carry designations of their own. Fayette County holds a whole-county geographic designation, Hardeman County has held one since 1978, and Madison County, the Lambuth campus's home, has a low-income designation.
For an FNP student, a clinic serving one of these communities can make a strong family practice rotation, provided clinical faculty approve the site.
Why Tennessee UofM students choose us
Whatever part UofM plays in arranging your placement, we bring you a Tennessee preceptor and site that satisfy its rules. Your placement advisor searches around your home address, confirms each candidate's unencumbered license and, for NPs, the certificate of fitness, and fits the setting to your track: family practice for FNP, inpatient and critical care for AG-ACNP, outpatient and inpatient psychiatry for PMHNP, plus the NP-precepted rotation each NP track requires.
We gather the preceptor and site details UofM's agreement review needs well before your term, keep your Complio and myClinicalExchange items on schedule, and line up a replacement quickly if a preceptor steps away midway. Send your track and home county through the form below to begin.
Questions UofM students ask
Can I live in Knoxville or Chattanooga and take UofM's online MSN?
Living in East Tennessee fits the way the MSN is built. Coursework is online, practicums happen near your home, and campus visits are limited to up to three short NP intensives. Your preceptor and site still go through UofM's approvals, beginning with the partnerships office's sign-off on your preceptor agreement ahead of the first clinical day. Admission itself is UofM's decision.
Is a Tennessee RN license enough for UofM clinicals in Tennessee?
For the RN requirement, yes. UofM's license rule points to Tennessee or to the approved state that holds your clinical site, so a Tennessee license, single-state or multistate, covers Tennessee sites as long as it stays unrestricted. A multistate license also carries RN practice into Mississippi and Arkansas for a site across the metro line.
Where are UofM's NP intensives held?
UofM's published schedule lists the dates for each on-campus session without naming the campus. Sessions run from a single day to three, there are no more than three across the program, and UofM gives at least half a year's notice. Attendance in January 2027 is mandatory in all three NP tracks, so confirm the location with your track coordinator before arranging travel from elsewhere in Tennessee.
Must my Tennessee NP preceptor have a collaborating physician?
If your preceptor prescribes, yes. Tennessee NPs who diagnose and prescribe hold a certificate of fitness and file a notice naming a collaborating physician, which is why the AANP rates the state as restricted. That arrangement shapes the practice you train in. UofM separately insists that each NP track include a rotation precepted by a nurse practitioner.
Can I do UofM clinical hours at the Tennessee hospital where I work?
Only in unusual cases. Under UofM's rule, a site that currently employs you is off the table for practicum hours unless compelling circumstances exist, and any exception needs approval and documentation from faculty and program administration. If you work for one of the large systems, ask your clinical faculty how the rule treats its other facilities. A site outside your workplace is the simpler plan, and we can find one.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against UofM's 2026-27 catalog, the LCON Academic Bulletin, program pages and licensure disclosures. Your clinical faculty and your plan of study have the final word.
Whether UofM helps or you start alone, we find the preceptor.
Tell us your UofM concentration, your next practicum and the town you train near. We find preceptors and sites that fit the course and prepare what the preceptor agreement form needs, early enough for approval before the first clinical day.
- Preceptors matched to the rotation rules: an NP preceptor, family practice for FNP, inpatient and critical care for AG-ACNP
- License, certification and site details ready for the preceptor agreement form, with your Complio items in order
- Across the Mid-South, Tennessee and the states UofM serves
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