The Student Health and Wellness Center held a grand opening event with a ribbon cutting ceremony last Wednesday on the third floor of the Student Center. 

The center officially opened last fall but were not able to gather until this year to celebrate.

“We are so excited to gather here for this monumental moment that we have been waiting for,” Keith Paylo, vice president of student affairs, said. “The Student Health and Wellness Center and training facilities have come a long way in the last couple of years, and they have already had such an impact on our student population. We could not have done this and gotten through the pandemic without our partnership with UPMC.”

The old Student Health and Wellness center was located in the connection between Academic and Thayer Halls and only had one counseling room, whereas the new space has several larger rooms.

“It [the old Health and Wellness Center] was a thoroughfare all the time and the counseling center only had one room,” Paylo said. “I would like to recognize Cassandra Moffat [director of Student Health and Wellness] and Laura Hoffman [staff clinician] because counseling as we know has become a hot topic in the sense of higher education and the needs are great. We have two amazing people heading up our counseling center, and we could not be more grateful.”

The partnership with UPMC allows for additional care, outside of the first aid intervention, illness and injury assessment, starter doses of over-the-counter medication, health screenings, community health referrals, physician appointments, and health education resource materials that the registered nurse Rebecca Harper provides.The expanded services offered include UPMC Anywhere Care virtual visits and telemedicine visits.  These visits with a practitioner are free to the student.  If needed, prescriptions can also be sent to the local CVS or Rite Aid pharmacies based on insurance.

“Point Park is all about student success through graduation and career success,” Don Green, university president, said. “That all begins with having healthy students who are able to pursue those very lofty goals. That’s both mental and physical health. Thank you to Rebecca and Cassie for what you do and for serving our students, thank you to all the trainers for what they do, and thank you to our amazing partners at UPMC for helping us through the last few years and continuing to do so.”

Tom Kolic, a UPMC account representative, and Steven Doyle, vice president of advocacy services, have both worked closely with the university in creating the new space and helped cut the ribbon.

“I wanted to echo what Keith said about the value of our partnership, as Point Park has been wonderful to work with,” Kolic said. “We’ve navigated through some tough times at the height of the pandemic, and we are really excited as things are hopefully starting to unfold differently that we’ll be able to focus on other services at the clinic and work more one-on-one with students.” 

Tours of the center were held for the over 20 attendees of various faculty and administration across campus and UPMC partners/