Point Park student Tim Marchilena, a junior studying secondary education in English, was not happy when he couldn’t find the language course he wanted. 

He turned to the Pittsburgh Council of Higher Education (PCHE). 

As part of the Council’s program, any student at one of 10 member schools in Pittsburgh can take one class elsewhere if it is not offered at Point Park, so Marchilena found a Swedish language course at the University of Pittsburgh. 

“I had a good experience cross registering. It was great to see how things go on another campus” said Marchilena. 

Although Marchilena was the only person from Point Park taking Swedish, he did meet students from other schools using this program. 

“It was nice meeting people using the same program. It gave us something to bond over while being at a different school,” Marchilena said. 

For Marchilena, one of the biggest difficulties was getting to Pitt, but Point Park does offer the shuttle over to Oakland, which would drop him off at the Playhouse, a 15-minute walk to where he needed to be. 

The PCHE was founded in 1966, and the idea behind the Council is to have select schools to participate in different activities, benefitting the entire group. 

The 10 schools that make up the Council are: Carlow University, Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham University, Community College of Allegheny College, Duquesne University, LaRoche College, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Point Park University, Robert Morris University and University of Pittsburgh. 

32 Point Park students used this program in the fall semester and 38 students did the same in the spring. The universities that were used in both semesters were CCAC, CMU, Duquesene, RMU, Pitt, Carlow and LaRoche. 

Simone Jurinko, assistant registrar, does the behind the scenes work when a student needs to cross register with another university. Students must first go through their advisor. One of the first steps for cross registering is having the cross registration form filled out with the student and advisor. After that it will go to Jurinko, and she will communicate with the school of choice. 

“Getting the form filled out and signed from both student and advisor is the most important part of the process. Once that is done, the hands-on portion for the students is over,” said Jurinko. 

PCHE Executive Director Karina Chavez believes this program needs more exposure for students to take advantage of it. Her job is to support the 10 member institutions on the primary purposes of this consortium as a liaison, facilitator and advocate. 

The PCHE also does joint recruitment and admission, public relation efforts between all the participating schools, and has conferences and workshops for the faculty and staff of the colleges. 

“This is a wonderful opportunity for students to enrich their educational experience through access of courses at member institutions that may not be offered at your home campus and to experience other campus cultures and environments,” said Chavez.