A program was initiated by the psychiatric faculty at the Florida International University School of Nursing to help provide students with clinical practice experience in the face of fewer in-patient facilities. When the student population cannot be absorbed, the faculty must provide optional experiences that meet the students' clinical objectives. In the Florida program, there were disruptions in the student's ability to interact on a reasonably consistent basis with one or more clients, so the overall objectives of the program were to maintain the clinical objectives for the negotiated number of students at the facility, provide supervision and role modeling, and facilitate educational diversity. To maintain a clinical focus on the nursing process, the faculty designed a student activity that focused on the development and utilization of a student generated, self-directed nursing process quality assurance monitor. Upon completing the assignment, the student had to author a generic nursing care plan for a psychiatric population, develop a nursing monitor using selected parts as audit criteria, monitor at least three closed charts, present the results to peers, and develop a summary report for the facilities' nursing quality assurance activity. Positive outcomes of this activity include the opportunity it gave students to experience the nursing process from the development of the generic nursing care plan to monitoring and reporting results. Contains 10 references. (SM)