Sue Silvestro, the current cashier at Pi Café and Vice President of the local worker’s union has a special place in her co-workers’ hearts.
“She can relate to all of our issues that we have as college students. She’s like your best friend combined with your mom,” said Nishita Roy ’07.
Sue is known as the cashier at Pi Café with short blonde hair who greets students with a smile and always has time to ask how they are, no matter how long the line.
Sue has worked at Wesleyan for 17 years. She started out working at the Campus Center, then worked as a third cook and moved on to become a second cook at Summerfields for five years. After incurring a back injury, which required lighter work, she worked at the Café in the Science Center. She has been working at Pi café since it opened.
“ I absolutely love [my job]!” Sue said. “It puts me in touch with the students face to face, I get to know every single one by name, and that is so important.”
Sue finds the students at Wesleyan stimulating in many different ways. However, she isn’t the only one benefiting from the interaction. With her friendly smile and caring words, she brings out the best in students and offers support they may not get from other adults on campus.
“One thing I’ve noticed about Sue is that when she swipes my card, she always says my name. Nobody else really does that,” said Sidney Russel ’07.
“I love it when they reach over the counter, ask me my name, and shake my hand,” Sue said.
Sue loves people, and she shares her love daily with the Wesleyan community. Her ability to find joy in building relationships with students is inspiring.
“I get to watch them for four years, watch them grow and change, they bring so much to our lives,” she said about Wesleyan students, who she affectionately calls “my students.”
Sue is also a passionate leader at Wesleyan. She is serious about the Union and the work it does, and said she has respect for the organizers who work for over seventy hours a week for a minimal amount of pay because they care so much.
“They care about people, they care about human rights, they care about living wages, and they care about immigrant workers,” Sue said.
Sue works to help facilitate contact between the Union and the student body. In addition to working with various student groups, they have held a number of symposiums hoping to combine ideas and educate students.
Although Sue feels the relationship between workers and students is strong, she expressed that the University could do more to foster a better relationship with the workers. This is something she wants to work for, and is hoping can improve in the future.
Sue had nothing but kind things to say about “her students.”
Sue keeps track of the students with whom she comes into contact, and enjoys watching them change.
“Just this week I got to see a girl named Aida who just returned from Africa, and how beautiful she looked,” Sue said. “Not just how physically beautiful she looked, but beautifully she had grown on the inside, and how happy she seemed. Just getting to know one student for five minutes really broadens one’s horizons.”
“She has taught me so much. She is very knowledgeable on campus dynamics and politics that play into campus jobs,” Roy said.
Sue has two daughters, one 29 and one 31 years old. When her first daughter went to college, she said, she hoped that there was someone she could talk to away from home.
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