Editing Herzing Issues: Clinical Placement (section)

=== HU-109: Clinical affiliation agreement requests from students routinely denied; Student H tried many times with no success; one successful case took months; students cannot expand clinical network to address placement shortages ===
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%"
! style="width:12em" | Severity
| High
! style="width:12em" | Status
| CONFIRMED
|-
! Issue type
| Affiliation Agreement Non-Responsiveness
! Date added
| 2026-05-05
|-
! Owner
| colspan="3" | Clinical Coordinator / Compliance / Dean of Nursing
|}
'''Finding.''' Student H, on October 3, 2024, documented that student requests for Herzing to establish new clinical affiliation agreements with additional sites are routinely denied. He said he tried many times with no success, and that the only person he knows of who succeeded was one girl, whom Herzing took months to make legit with a new site. This means students facing clinical placement shortages ({{HU|HU-071}}, {{HU|HU-093}}) cannot resolve their own placement crisis by identifying willing clinical sites, because the institution will not execute the necessary affiliation agreement. Students who find their own willing preceptors, as documented in Student D's Clinical II experience, face an institutional bottleneck that prevents them from obtaining placement even when they have done the work of finding it.

'''Evidence.''' Student H, October 3, 2024, paraphrased description: a student can try to request that Herzing obtain an affiliation agreement, but Student H tried many times with no success, and knew of one girl who did get Herzing to sign on with a new site, though that process took months. Student D, May 28, 2025, paraphrased description: Student D found their own site and Herzing got a contract in place, but finding the site was easy while getting Herzing to make it legit was a bit more challenging. The contrast between Student H's repeated failures and Student D's eventual success, achieved only with significant difficulty, documents inconsistent institutional responsiveness to affiliation agreement requests. Source Group: Herzing Direct Entry MSN Facebook Group Export (Dec 2022 to May 2026), Exhaustive Line-by-Line Review: 34,887 lines, 1,350 posts, 14,112 comments, 8 passes (Volume 7).

'''Reported statement.''' Student H, a student pseudonym, paraphrased that requesting an affiliation agreement rarely succeeds despite repeated attempts, and that the one classmate who succeeded waited months. Student D, a separate student pseudonym, paraphrased that finding the site independently was easy but getting Herzing to make it official was more challenging.

'''Standards.''' ACEN Standard 5 requires that institutions ensure sufficient clinical placement infrastructure to support student learning. If the institution is simultaneously experiencing clinical placement shortages ({{HU|HU-071}}: 75 percent without placement two weeks before semester start) and routinely denying student-initiated affiliation agreement requests, the institution is both failing to provide placements and blocking students from self-resolving the deficit. 34 CFR 668.14 (administrative capability) requires institutions to maintain the administrative capacity to process clinical affiliation agreements in a timely manner. A process that takes months and succeeds only rarely is not functioning adequately given the documented urgency of placement shortages.

'''Impact.''' Students facing clinical placement shortages have no effective self-help mechanism: they cannot find and formalize their own placements without institutional cooperation, and that cooperation is routinely withheld. Students who identified willing preceptors and sites were blocked from using them, while simultaneously being told their placement delay was due to limited available sites. The combination of institutional placement failure ({{HU|HU-071}}) and institutional refusal to process student-sourced affiliations compounds the harm and extends placement delays.

'''Notes.''' This issue directly compounds {{HU|HU-071}} (Spring 2025 placement crisis), {{HU|HU-072}} (documentation errors in placement), {{HU|HU-093}} (mass placement crisis December 2024 email), and {{HU|HU-024}} (excessive placement distances). Students who could resolve their own placement crisis are blocked by institutional inaction on affiliation agreements. Cross-reference: {{HU|HU-007}} (Spring 2026 placement not arranged), {{HU|HU-084}} (library volunteering for OB/Peds hours, students accepting inadequate placements because proper affiliations were not available).

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