The Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) Program within the Spiritual Care and Education department at WVU Hospitals provides an internship and a residency program for students and ministers to experience supervised encounters with patients, families, and staff in a hospital setting.

Students develop and expand on their interfaith professional caring skills to address a person’s spiritual, emotional, and physical needs. People of all religious denominations, who are interested in serving as chaplains, are eligible to apply.

Our CPE program offers Association of Clinical Pastoral Education Levels IA-IIB in two ways:

  • Extended Internship – A single-unit, 24-week, part-time, volunteer internship. This is an online/in-person hybrid learning opportunity. Upcoming Extended Internship units will be offered January 6-June 20, 2025, and July 7-December 19, 2025.
  • Residency – A full-time, year-long employment for first- or second-year residents consisting of three 15-week units. This is an in-person learning opportunity. The 2025-26 Residency will take place August 25, 2025-August 14, 2026.

One unit of CPE consists of 300 hours of clinical service during which students visit and support patients, their families, and caregivers, plus 100 hours of classroom education. Four units are required to become a board-certified chaplain.

Accreditation

Since 1993, our programs have been nationally accredited by the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE), a nationally recognized accrediting agency through the U.S. Department of Education. We are accredited to offer Level I and Level II clinical pastoral education by the:

ACPE
1 Concourse Pkwy, Suite 800
Atlanta, GA 30328
404-320-1472

Faculty

The Clinical Pastoral Education Program is led by the Rev. Matthew Johnson, M.Div, an ordained minister with the Church of the Nazarene. Raised in South Carolina, he received his bachelor’s degree in pastoral ministries from Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tennessee, and his Master of Divinity degree from the Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. After 10 years of parish ministry, he completed a CPE residency at Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood, South Carolina. Matt completed his ACPE Certified Educator training at Palmetto Health (now Prisma Health) in Columbia, South Carolina, before joining the WVU Medicine staff in September 2018. He obtained ACPE Certified Educator status in October 2020. Matt is married to Gaby, and they have two children.