By SHANNON O. WELLS
As vice provost for student affairs at Pitt, Carla Panzella bears a great deal of responsibility for making sure the student body’s needs, comforts and general sense of well-being are being met.
That job becomes a tad less herculean when a brand-new, nine-story state-of-the-art Recreation and Wellness Center opens in the first month of a new academic year (see related story).
“It’s nine stories of possibility. I love that,” she said of the O’Hara Street facility that officially opened to students on Sept. 14. “It’s sort of inspiring. It’s a pretty incredible space.”
The center includes amenities such as a six-lane pool and and spa, multiple floors of exercise equipment, a digital gaming center, an expansive multi-purpose gymnasium, a massive climbing wall and multiple fitness and wellness-related studios and spaces.
“I mean, the there is no (visual aid) that I can create that would give you any small taste of what this facility looks like,” Panzella said, noting she recently saw a group of students come out of the spin studio. “And they seem pretty happy with it.”
Panzella discussed the newly opened facility during a Sept. 12 presentation to the Student Admissions, Aid and Affairs (SAAA) Committee at its first meeting of the 2025-26 academic year.
In addition to sharing the visceral excitement of the long-awaited fitness facility, Panzella provided an overview and update regarding Pitt’s Division of Student Affairs, including topics such as increased student engagement and cohesiveness, communications with Pitt administration, financial affairs, and an uptick of interest in key initiatives such as the Provost Academy.
Committee Chair Sue Skledar, professor in the School of Pharmacy, started the meeting by sharing the committee’s mission statement, which she said is primarily to serve as a channel “through which concerns relating to admissions, financial aid and student affairs among undergrad and grad students can be brought to the attention of the faculty, the University administration and the Senate.”
“We believe diversity benefits and enriches the development (of all students). … To carry this out, our role is to facilitate communication between undergrad and grad students and the Senate, offer counsel to the students, the administration, faculty, staff and Senate regarding student matters” and formulate recommendations regarding the implementation of policies affecting students in critical areas.
“We (listen) to the folks from admissions, to look at trends in admissions in aid and affairs and how that impacts the University,” Skledar added. “And we are an advocate for promotion of equitable practices. So it’s a pretty broad statement.”
As part of introducing the Division of Student Affairs leadership team, Panzella welcomed Marlin Nabors as associate vice provost and dean of students, who is overseeing the Community and Inclusion, Wellness and Student Engagement and Professional Development teams.
“We’re glad to welcome him as the associate dean of student culture and community,” she said.
She also mentioned new executive associate dean and chief wellness officer, Michael Davila, who will oversee Student Health Services, the University Counseling Center, Campus Recreation, Care and Resource support, and the Office of Financial Wellness, a dual position with the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid. He will start on Oct. 13.
“He is currently serving as the senior student affairs officer at the Bradford campus,” Panzella noted. “He’s a Pitt person … so we’re pretty excited about that.”
Panzella called student affairs professionals “the folks who help bring together … the parts outside the classroom experience with our campus partners, who do some of the same work of curating,” she said of working with academic affairs. “We do this with academic supports, facilities and other areas, just so much bringing things together for students so that they have a really engaged, holistic development.”
Furthermore, it’s not just about the Pitt campus and learning experience.
“It’s really about teaching them the skills, giving them the experience, the confidence, so that when they leave, they have a very fulfilled life. First and foremost that it’s in a career that they know how to be well, that they know how to manage conflict, they know how to communicate, and they know how to have fun and enjoy life,” she said. “That’s our hope.
“It’s a pretty big vision for what we hope for our students and for what we hope we do in student affairs.”
Calling the recurring question, “Does this benefit the student?” the guiding “North Star” of the department’s role and vision, Panzella emphasized that student affairs professionals work hard to help educate students outside the classroom “and connect to the classroom education all the time.”
“We strive for excellence in what we do — and innovation. Our students are innovative and smart and brilliant, and they’re bringing the innovation, and they’re ever-changing,” she said. “So it’s really important that student affairs professionals are innovating when they think of the work that they need to do.”
Panzella touched on several specific tenants and areas within the Division of Student Affairs:
Collaboration: “One of the goals moving forward for student affairs is to think about ways in which we can collaborate,” she said, encouraging SAAA committee members as they interact with other student affairs staff at Pitt, “to think of ways in which we can connect.
“And let me know. … Our goal is to really bring things together (and) make a make a big place feel small for our students. The way we do that is by collaboration.”
Residence life: Residence education is the part of the program that “helps with the student employees, our resident assistants, our community assistants, the training,” Panzella explained, of those “on call 24 hours a day. They’re doing the educational components and the support for the students. And then it’s the partnership that makes it work really well.
“Because we have to make sure that students have food, we have to make sure that they’re in a safe space, to make sure that they’re comfortable, but (also) provide programming and support and care while they live with us, and then education, of course.”
Panzella said 191 resident assistants and community assistants were trained in the past year to help support the residence hall experience for this year’s 7,000 undergraduate students in traditional residence halls, along with others in apartments and the Oakland Hampton Inn hotel.
“We spent over 60 hours in preparing and training. So it’s pretty intense, in-person training for all of these folks, and then some asynchronous training. … We had to train and prepare additional staff this year.
“They work really closely with one another, and they work as a team. We essentially changed a hotel into a residence hall, and there are some challenges when you do that, but there are also some really great benefits,” she said of the location less than a mile from campus. “No one apartment or (living) space is further than any other residence hall that we’ve had.”
Resident assistants and resident directors work on what Panzella called “programmatic pieces.”
“It’s sort of a curriculum that they work on, and they host engagement opportunities. They build and maintain community, and they serve resources. … Every student has to meet with an RA to check in. They call it check-in conversation.”
They also have a more casual opportunity called Pitt Stop. “That’s sort of punny a little bit, right, and an opportunity for them to connect and share. … The goal is that student and RA connect regularly,” she said. “They put information in a system that helps them flag any concerns, get them to the resources that they need as quickly as possible.”
Crisis and conflict management: She emphasized that students have 24-hour support. “I think back to when my mom said, ‘Nothing good happens after midnight.’ So, I might disagree, as a former ‘res life’ professional, but let’s just say that it could get a little bit interesting after midnight sometimes.”
The 2024-25 academic year also saw a rise in room-change requests. “And we thought, ‘What is this?’ And it turns out it was often a communication issue. It was a conflict-management issue.
“You can imagine, coming out COVID, we all had a little bit of communication and conflict management room to grow, and so they targeted that through these communications… and they were able to decrease room changes by 11% over one year,” she said, noting that 75% of students said their residential experience helped them gain communication skills.
“That’s music to our ears.”
Provost Academy: Those who participated in the Provost Academy program shared that they “feel like it’s helped them with their transition to Pitt,” she said. “They feel that they’ve connected to peers and found community.
Panzella said close to 80% of students said they “feel like they know where to go for help. It’s a pretty nice number. We want it to be 100%, but I think that there’s a lot of places to go for help. So they may come to learn how to find what they need when they need it.”
Regarding student retention outcomes, Panzella said the University is in a “good space” regarding retention for all first-year students. She added that when you get into the 90-94% area, “you’re really in a pretty incredible, incredible space.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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