Carlow University is a private, women-centered liberal arts university founded by the Sisters of Mercy of Carlow, Ireland, who first arrived in Pittsburgh in 1843 and whose ministries focused on education and health care. Today, Carlow University remains true to its roots in Catholic Intellectual Tradition and offers more than 50 undergraduate programs within two colleges and six divisions that balance liberal arts with solid career preparation, as well as more than 18 graduate and post-baccalaureate programs. In addition to the university’s 14-acre main campus in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood, classes are offered in education centers located in Cranberry, Butler County and in Greensburg, Westmoreland County.

The main campus includes the former St. Agnes Church, the A.J. Palumbo Science and Technology complex, the Early Learning Center, the Campus School of Carlow University for pre-K through Grade 8 and the Convent of Mercy, a historic landmark and motherhouse to more than 150 nuns. Among the undergraduate fields of study offered are elementary education, nursing, environmental engineering, corporate communication, criminal justice, forensic accounting and ceramics. Graduate programs include creative writing, education, management and technology, business administration, nursing, professional counseling, professional leadership and counseling psychology. The university’s community outreach initiatives include New Choices, a comprehensive approach to helping single mothers and displaced homemakers re-enter the workplace to achieve economic self-sufficiency for themselves and their families.

Although Carlow University today is co-ed, women account for 96 percent of its 2,200 students. Nearly 20 percent of students are African American and more than half of all undergraduates are the first in their families to attend college. Generous financial aid is another hallmark of the university, where most undergraduates receive scholarship assistance. In 2006-2007, the average full-time student received a total financial aid package of $13,189 toward the full-time tuition of $18,498. Following graduation, 79 percent of Carlow students find employment in their fields of study.

Carnegie Mellon University is a top-ranked private research university founded in 1900 by industrialist Andrew Carnegie as a vocational school for working-class Pittsburghers. Today, it includes students from all 50 states and 93 nations, nearly 100 programs of study, seven schools and colleges, more than 90 research centers and institutes and extension campuses worldwide, and has earned recognition for the quality of its arts and technology programs, collaboration across disciplines and innovative leadership in education.

The university schools and colleges include Carnegie Institute of Technology, College of Fine Arts, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, Mellon College of Science, School of Computer Science and the Tepper School of Business. The quality of CMU’s programs, students and faculty is among the reasons CMU is consistently named as one of the nation’s top-ranked research universities by U.S. News & World Report.

Research, a long-standing strength, covers a wide and diverse range of disciplines from architecture and entertainment to economics and computer science. The university’s on-campus and off-campus centers and institutes include the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Entertainment Technology Center, Software Engineering Institute, Robotics Institute and Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research. Such resources have supported CMU researchers in making important breakthroughs in fields such as robotics and artificial intelligence, including the robotic vehicles used to clean nuclear waste following accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, Ukraine, and, more recently, the unmanned SUV, “Boss,” that safely navigated 55 miles of Californian road on its own to win the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge.

CMU alumni number more than 72,000 and include15 Nobel Laureates, including artificial intelligence pioneer Herbert Simon and mathematician John Forbes Nash; nine Turing Award recipients, the most recent being FORE Systems Professor of Computer Science Edmund Clarke; some 60 award-winning actors and actresses, including Academy Award winner Holly Hunter and Golden Globe winner Nancy Marchand; and others who have made significant contributions in the fields, such as musician Henry Mancini, Challenger astronaut Judith Resnick and influential pop artist Andy Warhol.

Chatham University, founded in 1869 as the Pennsylvania Female College, is among the oldest women’s colleges in the country. Today more than 1,800 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled in the university’s three colleges: the Chatham College for Women, offering baccalaureate degrees to women only; the College for Graduate Studies that offers masters and doctoral degrees to men and women; and the College for Continuing and Professional Studies that provides community programs and online undergraduate, graduate, professional and continuing education.

The university’s 35-acre campus includes a state-of-the-art broadcast studio, athletics facility, science laboratory complex and is home to several outreach centers that support the school’s “pillars of excellence” in women’s leadship, environmental awareness and global understanding. These centers include the Rachel Carson Institute, that promotes awareness and understanding of significant and current environmental issues; the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurship designed specifically for women business owners; and the Pennsylvania Center for Women, Politics, and Public Policy, the first center to focus specifically on women's political involvement in Pennsylvania.

Undergraduate students can choose from more than 35 majors and pre-professional programs with an intensive honors track, five-year masters program option and cross-registration at any of Pittsburgh’s eight colleges. The menu of undergraduate majors offered range from accounting and arts management to theater and women’s studied. Graduate programs include business administration, teaching, interior architecture, film and digital technology, counseling psychology, and creative writing, a program recognized by Atlantic Monthly and Poets & Writers magazine as among the nation’s most innovative.

Chatham University’s most famous alumna without question is biologist, environmentalist and writer Rachel Carson, whose whose bestseller, Silent Spring, warned of the health and environmental dangers of pesticides, influenced national and international environmental policies and launched the modern environmental movement. Others include Nancy Jardini, chief of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division; Kathie Olsen, deputy director of the National Science Foundation; and Syada el Daief, member of the Egyptian Parliament.

Duquesne University is a private, coeducational university founded in 1878 as a Catholic college by the Order of the Holy Spirit, a Roman Catholic congregation. Today, its 48-acre campus atop a bluff overlooking Downtown Pittsburgh is home to 10 academic schools that offer baccalaureate, professional and graduate-level degrees and more than 40 centers and institutes.

More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled each year at Duquesne, which is ranked among the top Catholic universities in the country. The university’s 10 schools offer more than 170 academic programs in the study of law, business, education, health sciences, leadership and professional advancement, liberal arts, music, natural and environmental sciences, nursing and pharmacy. All schools offer graduate programs. Centers and institutes cover disciplines ranging from law to music and include the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science & Law, Beard Center for Leadership in Ethics, Small Business Development Center, Center for Teaching Excellence, Center for Nursing Research and the City Music Center.

In addition to its main campus, the university offers academic programs in Harrisburg and the Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa. for adult students in the School of Leadership and Professional Advancement. Among the study abroad offerings, students can choose to study in Rome, Italy on Duquesne’s own Italian campus not far from Vatican City.

More than 140 on-campus and off-campus activities are offered, including NCAA Division I sports, intramural sports, arts and entertainment and volunteer services. Perhaps the best known campus organization is the Duquesne University Tamburitzans, an ensemble whose acclaimed productions of Eastern and Southeastern European folk music and dance are produced and performed by the students themselves. Also of note is the university’s collection of international folk artifacts, considered to be among the finest in the world. Duquesne is also home to the city’s public radio station, WDUQ.