Paula Williams likes to joke that she came to the University of Michigan, and never left.
For the west side Detroiter, it started with a summer job with Occupational Safety. Needing to work to pay for school, one of her colleagues mentioned the UMPD offered students jobs during the school year.
It opened up a new interest in Williams, who was a linguistics major, but had a lot positive influence from the military members and police in her family.
That was 26 years ago. Williams was offered a full-time job in 2001 as a campus Public Safety Officer (PSO) after completing her bachelor’s degree. This non-sworn position worked in a variety of public safety spaces on campus including staffing Dispatch, the UMPD substations and completing building locks/unlocks. When the campus PSO position was phased out, she took the opportunity to be sponsored in the police academy at Washtenaw Community College (WCC).
After graduating as the only woman in her police academy class, Williams moved up the ranks and is now a lieutenant in the patrol services and instructs at the WCC Police Academy.
While some police officers love one specialty area such as traffic, Williams wanted as much experience as possible. It made it a no-brainer to stay with the university police because there’s always something to learn, Williams said. She has been a bike officer, Field Training Officer, an evidence technician, a detective and leads the UMPD Honor Guard team.
“I pretty much have done just about every job in the police department that there is to do,” said Williams, whose unit patrols multiple campus buildings on foot, bike and motorized vehicles. “I have basically structured my career in education. It’s all about education.”
Williams may now be in management, but her vast experience across nearly every area of her department allowed her to impart her knowledge to her officers that put them in the best position to succeed.
“As a patrol lieutenant, I’ve risen through the ranks. I’ve been in a number of different spaces to impart that knowledge to our officers and put them in a position to help as many people as possible (is invaluable). I’m the type of leader that wants to empower people to do their best.”
Williams, and three others with UMPD went through interpersonal violence training, and they immediately began to work on a proposal for the university to have its own Special Victims Unit (SVU). She became one of the four original officers in the SVU, which credits this as one of her biggest accomplishments in her career.
The importance of the SVU is shown through studies that convey that the vast majority of college-age students — male or female — will be impacted by some type of sexual assault or domestic violence incident while in school, Williams said. She added if a student has not been impacted, they know somebody who has.
“I can’t be there to prevent things from happening, but I can certainly be there to support people if something were to happen,” said Williams. “And be able to help get them back to, not a hundred percent, but at least on their path to healing.”
The university is much different than when Williams was a student and as it continues to evolve, it requires her to be adaptable and flexible to meet the needs of those on campus now. Williams adds that flexibility is knowing that students may be the same age as when she was a student, but they are different than before.
“I want (my team) to go into every situation thinking about the people and making the best decisions that way, that’s all I can ask from them,” Williams said. “The university continues to grow and it is significantly different now than it was back then, both culturally, and physically. We have to change with it.
“The thought processes and concerns are different (for students). And then for me, and law enforcement, you have to change with your community. The needs are different and you have to be able to be flexible enough to meet that need.”
Williams approaches her job in a fashion of wanting people to have a good experience on campus, if not better, than she did as a student.
“I always default to making something better than I found it,” Williams said. “So what I love about specifically working at Michigan, like I said, from the community perspective, I want to make sure that they have the same good experience that I did. And if not, how can we get them on that path? For the officers, I want them to recognize what a wonderful community we work in and want to help keep that community safe. I want them to go into every situation thinking about the people and making the best decisions for the situation. That’s all I can ask from them.”