Doing Olivet Clinical Hours Where You Work
Olivet Nazarene University answers this for some programs and stays quiet for others. The RN-BSN handbook for students who started core before August 2026 lets NRSG 467 hours happen at your workplace outside your scheduled shifts, and the Traditional BSN keeps every capstone off your own unit. For the FNP, PG-APRN and NEL tracks, Olivet's public pages set no employer rule, so the answer comes from your requirements course and the SON Clinical Coordinator.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Olivet program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your Olivet course.
The answer, program by program
Olivet writes workplace rules into its bachelor's handbooks and leaves them out of its graduate materials. This is where each program stands on Olivet's own documents.
| Program | What Olivet's documents say | Where to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| RN-BSN, core started before August 2026 | NRSG 467 hours may be at your workplace, never during your scheduled work hours | Legacy RN-BSN handbook; bsnpracticum@olivet.edu |
| RN-BSN, starts on or after August 23, 2026 | No workplace rule; who arranges the hospice and community sites is not stated | Fall 2026 RN-BSN handbook; your course faculty |
| Traditional BSN | Placements are assigned; a capstone cannot be on the unit where you work | BSN handbook, Levels 1 to 4 |
| MSN-FNP and PG-APRN (FNP) | No employer rule on Olivet's public pages | Canvas requirements course; SON Clinical Coordinator |
| MSN-NEL and Post-Bachelor's NEL | No employer rule on Olivet's public pages | Canvas requirements course; your course faculty |
Where Olivet is silent, read the silence as a reason to ask, not as a yes. The sections below take each program in turn.
RN-BSN students who started core before August 2026
The legacy RN-BSN handbook is Olivet's most specific document on this question. It makes students responsible for their own preceptor and agency, and it treats the three 15-hour practicum courses differently.
NRSG 467, the leadership, law and ethics course, is the one course where your employer is named as an option. Hours may be done at your workplace but not during the hours you are scheduled to work. Olivet wants that preceptor to be a registered nurse with at least a BSN and a leadership or management position, current or past, so a nurse leader at your own organization can fit when the hours sit outside your paid schedule.
The community health course, NRSG 326, and the global and transcultural course, NRSG 443, point elsewhere: a preceptor based at, or connected with, a community agency (a school or college, an outpatient clinic, a pregnancy center), and hours spent at that agency. Olivet highly recommends keeping one preceptor for both courses. The paperwork route is the same wherever you train; the RN-BSN practicums page covers the forms and the approval email.
RN-BSN students on the new curriculum
Students who start the RN-BSN on August 23, 2026 or later follow the Fall 2026 handbook, which swaps the legacy courses for two practicum courses. NRSG 364, the palliative and end-of-life course, pairs you with a hospice nurse for 15 hours. NRSG 471, population health, carries 45: thirty online, working in a group with pre-licensure and MSN students to build a community health presentation, and fifteen in direct care, reconciling medications and teaching adults.
This handbook sets no workplace rule and does not say who arranges the hospice or community site. Ask your course faculty early in the core how your hours will be set up, well before NRSG 364 opens.
One point here rewards the job you already have. RNs who hold CHPN certification or bring hospice or palliative experience may earn Prior Learning Credit for NRSG 364. If hospice is where you work, raise that option before you plan any hours for the course.
Traditional BSN: assigned, and never your own unit
Campus BSN students do not pick sites. The Levels 1 to 4 handbook has the BSN director and faculty set placements, which can run from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., six days a week, and students may not contact sites or potential preceptors themselves. The Level 0 handbook adds that sites may sit about 90 minutes from campus and that students arrange their own transportation.
The one workplace rule concerns the capstone. Capstone assignments come from the NURS 449/NURS 478 didactic professor or the BSN Program Director, and the capstone cannot be on the unit where you work. The Level 0 handbook says capstone requests may be considered. Because the rule names the unit, ask whether a different unit at the same facility would be acceptable before you put it in a request.
Graduate tracks: what Olivet leaves open
Olivet's MSN handbooks and program pages set no rule on doing FNP, PG-APRN or NEL hours at your employer, and none on being precepted by someone you work with. Olivet's wording only places the hours near where you live, under an approved preceptor of your own choosing. Check your Canvas requirements course first, then take what it leaves open to the SON Clinical Coordinator.
Bring specific questions instead of a general "is my job fine". These are the ones that decide it:
- Is the site in a state Olivet approves for FNP hours? A workplace in one of the 13 not-approved states is out, even when you live in an approved one.
- Does the setting see the population the course names?
NRSG 636Cis adult and older adult primary care,NRSG 637Cwomen's health,NRSG 638Cpediatrics andNRSG 639Cprimary care across the lifespan. - Would your preceptor be a coworker, a supervisor or someone from another department, and does your track accept each of those?
- Would the hours sit apart from your paid shifts? Olivet states that rule only for legacy
NRSG 467, so ask whether something similar applies to you. - Will the site ask for its own student onboarding even though you are on staff? Olivet's handbook warns that a site can ask for more than Olivet's own list.
NEL students face a different version of the question. NRSG 604 is a population health practicum and NRSG 620 covers education and leadership, so an education department or a nurse leader inside your own organization may be worth asking about first.
Silence is not permission. Until your requirements course or the SON Clinical Coordinator clears your workplace for graduate hours, plan a second option.
When your employer is not the answer
Your own workplace may not match the next clinical: an ICU nurse heading into a pediatric primary care course, or a travel nurse on assignment in a state where Olivet does not permit FNP hours. Their employer cannot solve the placement, and that is where our placement desk comes in.
When the employer cannot host the course, Olivet students turn to us for the most thorough search open to them: preceptors close to where they live, in states on Olivet's approved list, practicing with the population the course is built around. We prepare the preceptor and site information Olivet reviews, track the dates your compliance items expire, and step in with a replacement if a preceptor leaves partway through. Olivet makes the approval decision, and what it receives from you is complete on arrival.
Start with how it works, or tell us your track and first clinical date in the form below.
Questions Olivet students ask
Can my own manager precept me in the Olivet RN-BSN?
For legacy NRSG 467, the handbook looks for a BSN-prepared RN who leads or manages now or has done so before, and it allows hours at your workplace outside your scheduled shifts. It does not say whether your direct supervisor may serve. Ask when you send the Preceptor Information Form to bsnpracticum@olivet.edu, before any hours start.
Can Olivet FNP clinical hours count while I am on the clock at my job?
Olivet's graduate handbooks and program pages do not address paid time. The only Olivet rule on it is in the legacy RN-BSN handbook, which keeps NRSG 467 hours out of scheduled work hours. Read your requirements course, then put the question to the SON Clinical Coordinator, all before a single employer hour goes into Project Concert.
Do my hours working as an RN count as Olivet clinical hours?
Olivet treats them as two separate requirements. Your RN work counts toward the 2,000 RN hours Olivet asks MSN students to have, while clinical hours are completed with an approved preceptor inside a clinical or practicum course and documented in Project Concert. The one bridge is Prior Learning Credit for RN-BSN NRSG 364.
Is an Agency Affiliation Agreement needed when RN-BSN hours are at my employer?
The legacy RN-BSN handbook lists the Agency Affiliation Agreement as needed only in some cases, sent alongside the Preceptor Information Form with original signatures, and it does not define those cases. Ask bsnpracticum@olivet.edu about your employer before the course starts so the right forms go in together.
Does my employer's onboarding replace Olivet's compliance items?
Plan on keeping them separate. Olivet asks graduate students to complete and maintain its own list, from the background check and drug screen to titers and in-person BLS, in its compliance system before the first clinical day. The compliance checklist lists every item.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Olivet's own handbooks, program pages, fee sheet and licensure disclosures. Your handbook version, your Canvas clinical requirements course, your faculty and the SON Clinical Coordinator have the final word.
Olivet asks you to start with your own network. We make the search the easy part of your program.
Tell us your Olivet track, where you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors whose patients fit the course, inside Olivet's approved states, and prepare everything Olivet's approval and the site's onboarding need.
- Preceptors matched to the course: adults and older adults for
NRSG 636C, women's health forNRSG 637C, children forNRSG 638C, education and leadership forNRSG 620 - Credentials, license and site details ready before your clinical course opens, with the drug screen timing on your calendar
- In your own community, in Illinois or any state Olivet approves for your clinicals
Start your placement plan
Track, city and start date is all we need to begin.