Gary Margolis, Ph.D., Director, Psychologist
Gary Margolis Ph.D., Middlebury '67, has been Director of Counseling since 1972 and Associate Professor of English(part-time). Gary has lectured and published widely on the developmental and contemporary concerns and issues of college students and has written three books of poetry, most recently, "Fire in the Orchard"(Autumn House Press). A few years ago he had the opportunity to travel to the High Andes and Rain Forest of Ecuador and learn about the indigenous ways of healing of the Shuar and Quechua people.
Gary was awarded the first annual Sam Dietzel award for mental health practice by the Clinical Psychology Department at Saint Michaels College. He has two twenty-something children, Sam and Ariana, one wife, Wendy, and two Pugs, Dug and Boomer. He loves his work with students and his colleagues.
E-mail: margolis@middlebury.edu
Virginia Logan, MA, Associate Director, Psychologist, Coordinator of Outreach Programs
Virginia has worked as a counselor for the past 26 years and joined the Counseling Center at Middlebury 7 years ago. She has worked in a number of different settings including private practice, hospitals, and substance abuse treatment programs. She also worked as a researcher at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, CA.
Virginia understands the significant transitions students make when they come to Middlebury - both leaving home and transitioning to college and then leaving college and moving into the "real world." She sees counseling as a resource for students to negotiate those transitions in their own way. As a counselor, she believes that the process of questioning "Who am I?" is as important as questioning one's academic or career path. Likewise, experimenting with how to relate to oneself as an independent adult is as important as experimenting with how to relate to family, faculty and peers as an adult.
Virginia's interests include photography, dancing, international travel, human development, and systems theory. She lives in the mountains near the Breadloaf campus with her daughter.
E-mail: vlogan@middlebury.edu
Ene Piirak, Ph.D., Associate Director, Psychologist, Coordinator of Psychological Testing, Evaluation, and Clinical Internship
Ene Piirak, Ph.D. Psychologist has been on the staff of the counseling center since 2000. Prior to coming to Middlebury, she was director of the counseling center at Goddard College. She has been a full time faculty member in the undergraduate psychology department at St. Michael's College and has maintained a private psychotherapy practice in Burlington for over 25 years. Ene enjoys her contact with college students and being witness to all the rich changes that occur during those years. She hopes that her Estonian heritage (Ene came to the U.S. when she was 4 years old) helps her to appreciate the diversity of experience that is possible. She also enjoys supervising graduate interns and sharing her enthusiasm for the privilege of getting to know others so deeply. Ene is married with two grown daughters and two step-children.
E-mail: epiirak@middlebury.edu
Ximena Elizabeth Mejia, Ph.D., Counselor
Ximena was born in Quito, Ecuador and came to the United States to pursue her college education. She graduated with a mental health counseling master’s degree from Stetson University and completed her doctorate degree in counseling education from University of Central Florida.
Ximena has worked for 15 years supporting college students through their adaptation and development in their college careers in various student services roles. She worked as an admissions counselor, international student advisor, and as the director of the Cross Cultural Center at Stetson University. Additionally, her counseling experiences include working with sexual assault victims and people suffering from chronic pain providing individual, couples, and family therapy.
Ximena’s counseling interests focus around the intersections of cultural identity, multiculturalism, gender, and sexuality issues. Her dissertation studied the impact that sandplay therapy had on the mental health status and resiliency attitudes of Mexican farmworker women. Her publication Gender Matters: Working with Men survivors of Trauma, focuses on the application of feminist therapy interventions with men survivors of traumatic experiences. Ximena’s counseling interests and experiences will bring a complementary addition to the counseling efforts that CCHR already provides. In her role as a counselor, she will provide students with support as they grow through their personal and academic experiences.
xmejia@middlebury.edu
Rebecca Boedges, M.A., Master's Level Counseling Intern
Rebecca is the 2007-2008 counseling intern from the University of Vermont. She has an MA in Industrial/
Organizational Psychology, a year of training in Dance Therapy and is continuing her counseling education at UVM. Her prior experience includes working with organizations to develop non-discriminatory hiring practices, marketing, and teaching Nia.
During her free time, she loves to dance, be outside, listen to music, and spend time with her husband, Mark.
E-mail: rboedges@middlebury.edu
John Beattie, M.A., Men's Issues & Violence Prevention
John has been a counselor for 21 years serving in a variety of settings including community mental health services and private practice. The recent focus of his work has centered on both the privileges and challenges of being male, working with men of various ages. His current work at Middlebury involves increasing men’s awareness of themselves and the choices in their lives with a resulting recognition of the obligation and opportunity men have to insure the safety of living in a college community.
In addition to a career in counseling, John has taught at the elementary, high school, and college levels. For 12 years, together with his family, he operated a dairy farm of registered Jersey cattle in Salisbury where he and his wife live. They are blessed with three adult children.
E-mail: jbeattie@middlebury.edu
Robert Jimerson MD, Consulting Psychiatrist, Counseling Service of Addison County
Annie Schrader, APRN, LADC, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Counseling Service of Addison Country
Barbara Hammerlind, MS, RN, CS, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Counseling Service of Addistion County
Donna Stark, Administrative Associate/
Client Services Coordinator
Donna joined the Counseling team in November of 2002. Prior to that she worked at a 192 bed County Nursing Home in Unity NH for 20 years. After an array of positions she became the Business Office Manager. The following four years saw her as the business office manager for a video production company (starring in a few local commercials!) and then in various positions at an industrial gas company. She is the mother of two "all grown up girls", Jennifer and Nicole and grandma to two very sweet "little boys", Tyler and Logan and one beautiful little girl, Abigail. She and her husband, Cliff, live happily, 7 miles away from the "boys", in Monkton. Donna's connection and interactions with the students is her greatest joy in coming to work each day.
E-mail: dstark@middlebury.edu
Complete resumes of our staff are located in our "Resource Book" in the Counseling Center.