The Student Lounge Where You Can Study—and Jumpstart a Career

January 25, 2024

Tracey Moffatt, system chief nursing officer at Ochsner Health, celebrating the opening of the Ollie Lounge with Chamberlain University students.

Through an innovative partnership, nursing students are networking with potential hiring managers between classes.

Bean bag chairs, phone chargers, chalkboard walls. The Ollie Lounge has all the trappings of a typical college hangout. But there’s much more to it.

For Chamberlain University students studying to become nurses, it’s a place to relax between classes or cram with their study group. They are part of an innovative Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at a campus location on the third floor of an Ochsner Health facility. Ochsner, like other health centers in New Orleans and across the United States, faces a nursing shortage.

Louisiana is projected to have a shortage of approximately 6,000 registered nurses by 2030, according to the state Board of Regents.

For Ochsner Health hiring managers, it’s an opportunity to meet students who might one day work for them. They host regular meet-and-greets with students on monthly themes.

If students are interested in perioperative nursing, for example, they have the opportunity to hear directly from the head of surgical nursing in this relaxed space,

says Dr. Jennifer Couvillon, president of Chamberlain’s New Orleans campus. “Unit directors and talent acquisition can stop by with lunch and expose students to options available to them."

That helps students determine which areas they might want to work in. When they are ready to apply for a job at Ochsner, there’s a computer in the Ollie Lounge with a link to the careers page.

"As a chief nurse, I value the relationship that Chamberlain has with Ochsner Health,” says Deborah Ford, chief nursing officer at Ochsner.

I can rely on the expertise of the faculty and the familiarity of the students as they rotate through our units engaging with our nurses and nurse leaders. The new nurses graduating from Chamberlain are clinically strong and are able to contribute immediately to our team’s culture, strategy, and goals.

CU representatives posing together in group photo

Left to Right: Jennie Seal, Chamberlain associate dean of faculty; Deborah Ford, chief nursing officer at Ochsner; “Ollie”, the Ochsner mascot; Renee DiGiovanni, assistant vice president of Nursing at Ochsner; Angelique White-Williams, associate dean of faculty at Chamberlain; and Katherine Berrigan, Chamberlain nursing recruiter.