A face less known to the student body, Director of Public Safety Lisa Boudah has brought Public Safety to its current high level of efficiency. A resident of Vermont since she was eight years old, Boudah explained how she had to grow up being told “I am not a Vermonter.” After college, Boudah, unsure of her future prospects with an Arts and Humanities degree, took an interview with law enforcement and became a Burlington police officer. However, after two-and-a-half years on the force Boudah decided that she wanted something different out of law enforcement and traveled to California to become a Public Safety officer at Stanford University. Several years later after moving to Massachusetts to work at Assumption College, the desire to be near her family and ailing father brought her here to Middlebury.
“When the job opened up at Middlebury I just thought that would be great. I’d be closer to my family, my parents. It would be a great place to raise my kids so I applied and I’ve been here for 10 years,” said Boudah.
Since she arrived here as director in 2000, Boudah has succeeded in moving the Public Safety office to a larger operating location (previously the office was in Carr Hall), improving the quality of Public Safety staff, as well as providing better functioning equipment.
“I think I’ve accomplished many goals I’ve had over the years.,” said Boudah, “the first one — to make sure we had the right staff doing the job and that they knew the job they were supposed to do.”
However, while heading up the administrative side, Boudah prefers to dive right in to the thick of things.
“I like working on solving problems,” said Boudah, “I like determining what’s going on by interviewing and meeting with people and really finding out what the issue is, getting the best information and finding a possible solution,”
Boudah uses these investigative skills to solve many problems on and off campus ranging from stolen laptops to sexual assault.
“I deal with language schools in the summer and a lot times there are issues, there could be investigations with sort of a ‘what happened’ ‘who did it’ ‘what should be the potential solution to the problem,” said Boudah. “I [also] work with outside agencies — Midd police, state police. It could be on a specific case, maybe a student comes to report something to us like the theft of a laptop or something more serious … it doesn’t matter who, if anyone in the community is having a problem Public Safety can assist them.”
While performing the role of an essential figure on campus, Boudah is able to spend time indulging her hobbies, too. She enjoys gardening and playing hockey, as well as time with her family — two daughters, two dogs, two cats, eight chickens and a horse.
Getting to Know: Director of Public Safety Lisa Boudah
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