\n\tBy MARTY LEVINE<\/p>\n
\n\tJana Sestili was practically foreordained to come to Pitt.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tCOMING NEXT<\/p>\n
\n\t\tThe next Staff Council Coffee and Conversation is with Kevin Conley, associate dean for undergraduate studies, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, at 10 a.m. Sept. 17, at the University Club.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cMy dad is a Pitt alum,\u201d Sestili, director of event & conference services for Hospitality@Pitt, told the latest Coffee and Conversation event sponsored by Staff Council. \u201cThe night I was born, he was taking a final in the Cathedral of Learning. He just knew he had to take the final and get back. He got back and I was born and \u2026 he checked to make sure I had 10 fingers and 10 toes and he looked at my mom and said, \u2018She\u2019s going to Pitt.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSestili grew up in Beaver County. Rochester High School, when she was attending, promoted closer, smaller colleges over Pitt \u2014 which never sat well with her father. She thought her father, who inspired the family to love Pitt football when she was growing up, \u201cwas going to be speechless\u201d when she attended Pitt, interned in Pitt Athletics \u201cand met this big hunk of a lineman named Chris Sestili. \u2026 We started dating. I brought him home. We ended up getting married. Thirty-two years later, we\u2019re still here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tTogether, the couple took their first jobs at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where Jana Sestili began working with their alumni association.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThen Pitt called us home,\u201d she said. \u201cI was in the alumni association for many years and then this thing called Hospitality@Pitt\u201d was formed. \u201cI kept thinking, that\u2019s got my name written all over it. \u2026 I love doing the alumni engagement events. I love getting to know alumni, but sometimes you need to change.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOne of my long-term dreams,\u201d she added, \u201cis that we will be able to get a lot of campus departments, if not all campus departments, to come through us to do their events on campus. Because it\u2019s so much easier for us to manage an event for you in the Connolly Ballroom,\u201d for instance, in Alumni Hall.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIf you do it yourself, you\u2019re relying on facilities and housekeeping and catering and all these other departments, and if you\u2019re not on site to make sure that\u2019s all happening, they\u2019re going in a million different directions. They\u2019re busy just like we all are. But if you hire us we\u2019re there from start to finish and we make sure it\u2019s OK. We just hand the pretty baby off to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAsked whether there was a specific space on campus where she would like to be able to host events, but which is currently off limits, Sestili didn\u2019t hesitate:<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere are sacred spaces on this campus and I don\u2019t like when we mess with them. But the most sacred space on this campus is, where? The Commons Room in the Cathedral of Learning. \u2026 It should primarily be a student space. But I would love nothing more than to have two weekends in the summer: Let us sell it. We will have the restrictions. We will say you have to keep the furniture in place. We will protect our greatest asset. But do you know how many Pitt alumni would love, and over the years would have loved, to have had an anniversary party or a wedding reception or something along those lines in there? So just two weekends \u2014 and it\u2019s a premium spot for us to sell.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cLet\u2019s not kid ourselves about that. We\u2019re not giving it away and it\u2019s not for everybody. But that\u2019s where I would like it to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAs for the University Club, which is the new host for Staff Council\u2019s Coffee and Conversation events this year, she said: \u201cI want this to be the place where you call first to do your events. I would like the unwritten rule to be: call first see if your event can go in the University Club. If not, have them help you find the space.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAsked for advice to others aiming to build helpful contacts throughout Pitt for their own work, Sestili said: \u201cGet out of your comfort zone and get to know other people, people that their title might intimidate you, people that you might not otherwise talk to. Get to know them because you never know when they can help you. \u2026 If you form that relationship, it sure is a lot easier\u201d to work together.<\/p>\n
\n\tShe called her leadership style \u201cpeople-centric. People first and foremost and \u2026 collaborative and leaning into making sure that they\u2019re OK and making sure the decisions are OK. Being very protective. I always say, when people bring problems to me, I immediately want to solve them because I don\u2019t want my team to be stressed or anybody in the University to be stressed. But I\u2019ve learned through the years, and I\u2019ve talked to some of my colleagues about this, that if they bring me a problem I\u2019d rather they tell me the problem, give me all the issues, and come up with a solution (themselves). I\u2019d like to empower them.\u2026<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI have had people along the way say that my leadership style might be inhibiting me, professionally \u2014 that I\u2019m not serious enough for all that. But you can\u2019t change a zebra\u2019s stripes. So I\u2019ve learned over the years to just be myself but let people know what my value is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tMarty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu<\/a> or 412-758-4859.<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tHave a story idea or news to share? Share<\/a> it with the University Times.<\/p>\n