By MARTY LEVINE
Helping a new class of Pitt students reach their potential is, in some ways, just like undertaking a home renovation project — and she loves both, said Carla Panzella, vice provost for student affairs, at the latest Staff Council Coffee and Conversations event on April 10.
COMING NEXT
The next Staff Council Coffee and Conversations event will be on May 22 with Christine E. Kasper, dean of the School of Nursing.
“I love to renovate homes — I love to knock down walls and I like to see the potential, and I think it’s very fitting” as a metaphor for her work at Pitt, Panzella said. “It’s just a fun thing to do. Demo is certainly my favorite part of the project — taking the walls down … then seeing it come to full fruition again.
“When a new class of students comes in each year, I see their potential,” she said. “I see where they’re going to grow. … The four years of the university student’s life, or when they move on to graduate and professional school, it’s really an incredible journey.”
Panzella has worked in student affairs for her entire career, for religious-affiliated, regional and state institutions, joining Pitt four years ago. A native New Yorker, from Staten Island, she has spent most of her career in New York and New Jersey, with a stint in Salem, Mass., before coming here.
Why choose student affairs? “I think a lot of people in student affairs say that we get chosen,” she said. “It chooses us — mostly because we didn’t even know it was a career. I’m a first-generation college student and I sort of figured out going to college on my own.” As an undergraduate and then during pursuit of her master’s degree in organizational psychology, she worked as resident assistant in her dormitory and then a resident director — simply because she needed the jobs, she said.
“But I was getting all these skills and I was learning all these ways of doing work that I really enjoy doing, and I was inspired by students.” Deciding on a career in student affairs “was a really tough choice, because I hadn’t considered it before. Once I said this was my career, it all came together very quickly and very easily.
“The reason you get into this work,” she continued, “is to help others have transformational experiences similar to the ones that they afforded you when you were in college. If I have a tough day” now, as a professional, “I just remember my purpose.”
What about mentors, asked event moderator Sam Young, co-vice chair of Staff Council’s Staff Life committee.
“I was raised by my dad and he was sort of my mentor growing up, in that he believed that I could do anything that I set my mind to and worked really hard for. That meant that life was very challenging, because he had high expectations and he pushed me really hard. But it was a great sort of upbringing.
“When I was in my first intentional student affairs job, I met the dean of students, who was the senior student affairs officer, and she was a dynamo and somebody that I really respected. I thought, ‘She’s really busy, she’s not going to be able to help me; I’m in a semi-entry-level position and I’ll just try to work hard.’ But anytime I had an opportunity to talk with her, I would just start talking with her a little bit more and a little bit more and she said, ‘Would you like to have dinner?’
“I took her up on every opportunity she gave me, and I just watched her — I observed how she moved; I saw difficult, challenging situations that she navigated; I asked her questions. She was very transparent with me about some of the challenges that we saw together in the division.”
In the student affairs field, Panzella added, “most of the time you don’t know your impact, and you have to be OK with that. You have to appreciate the fact that you know you are doing the work and it is helping someone. Hopefully it’s helping a lot of people. Every so often you’ll get a note, you’ll get a message, you’ll get someone sharing a story, and I have been so fortunate to have a few of those sprinkled throughout my career that keep me in this field, that help me remember that we are making a difference in the world.
“I think there’s no other time like this time, that humans are making such big transitions in their life,” she said of students’ undergrad years. “It’s a huge transition in young people’s lives and they’re making this incredible change. If we could be part of their identity development, who they want to be as humans in the world — if we can help them through tough difficult times, through these transitional moments — (there’s) nothing more I’d like to do than to be part of that.”
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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