As Seton Hill’s Associate Dean of Graduate, Adult Studies & Non-traditional Programs, Kathy Rother, a former high school principal and teacher, is always looking for ways to partner with K-12 schools to help students explore pathways to higher education.

Over the last several years Seton Hill’s College in High School program has found success and expanded across the country and locally.

One of the closest to home - and most tailored to specific needs - is a partnership with a program for aspiring educators at the Central Westmoreland Career and Technology Center. In this program, juniors and seniors from six local high schools spend half of their day in education courses. 

Dean of School of Education and Applied Social Sciences Kathy Harris, Associate Professor of Education Daniel Casebeer, and Assistant Professor of Education Melissa Tamburrino have been working on incorporating learning objectives and content from Seton Hill education courses into the classes that were offered at CWCTC so that these students would have the opportunity to graduate from the program with college credits. 

After a pilot year in 2024-25 where seniors were awarded college credits if they enrolled at Seton Hill, juniors and seniors enrolled in the program in the 2025-26 academic year are able to earn College in High School credits with this year’s juniors being able to earn up to 18 credits throughout their time in the program that can be transferred anywhere. They also gain automatic acceptance into Seton Hill’s education program located just up the road.

The accepted courses, which include Foundations of Education & School Law, Introduction to Special Education, and Typical & Atypical Growth and Development, were chosen to give students a head start on their requirements, reducing the cost of a college education and helping accelerate future teachers’ timeline to become student teachers and then move into a classroom of their own. 

“This program allows students to get into the classroom more quickly and have the opportunity to add a specialty or a double major or minor,” said Rother. “We are hoping this program can become a model for other career and technology centers, and also other careers such as those in healthcare and technology to accelerate pathways from high school to post secondary education.”