Maymester Trip Leads SLIS Alumna to a Career in Washington

By Caroline O'Neal

When U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham decided to place more emphasis on grants advocacy and helping South Carolina organizations like the University of South Carolina secure federal funding, he hired Wendy Mathia, School of Library and Information Science alumna, as his first full-time grants director.

Mathia is a liaison between South Carolina institutions and federal agencies. She serves as a personal contact during the faceless, online grants application process; assists Sen. Graham in writing support letters to agencies on behalf of South Carolina organizations; helps organizations with preliminary research; and even gives them a heads-up when she discovers a grant that they may find helpful.

“We can’t pressure agencies to fund particular programs, but we can make sure that Washington knows what a wonderful job South Carolina is doing,” said Mathia. “We play an advocacy role to ensure that our state, and especially our education systems, receive the attention they deserve.”

In 2010, she helped SLIS, the very school she was a part of during her master’s program, secure federal funding from the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. The program enhances library and information science education and helps develop library leaders. SLIS has utilized the funding, more than $800,000, to kick-start a brand new doctoral program for Fall 2011 called the Cultural Heritage Informatics Leadership Program (CHIL). The grant has provided seven CHIL students with three to four years of tuition, resources, mentors and an annual stipend.

Dr. Sam Hastings, the director of SLIS and point of contact for the Laura Bush program, said, “Wendy Mathia is one of our alumni, so she understands which grant proposals work best and what we need to garner support. It is difficult to find resources for our research projects, yet Sen. Graham and his staff always keep us in mind.”

Mathia enjoys the opportunity to remain involved with her alma mater in her position as grants director, but her favorite part of the job is the contact she has with constituents. “I have found South Carolinians to be extremely innovative,” said Mathia. “They come up with great ideas, and they vocalize them, despite how bleak the situation is. Our constituents are forward and determined. They take me out of the Washington bubble and bring me back to reality.”

Even though staying in touch with South Carolinians reminds her that Washington is not the center of the universe, it is South Carolina that led her to Washington in the first place.

Mathia started her master’s program at USC in 2002. During her second year of the program, she traveled to Washington with a group of undergraduates from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications and Dean Charles Bierbauer for a Maymester course. This is when she first met South Carolina’s now senior senator, Lindsey Graham. After the trip, she kept in touch with the senator’s staff and landed an internship in his office during the last semester of her master’s program.

After graduating in May 2004, Mathia returned to Washington to work for a lobbying firm. About a year later, when the senator needed a systems administrator, he hired Mathia because of her expertise in research and technology. Shortly after, Sen. Graham became adamant about expanding his role in grant advocacy, and he asked Mathia to lead the way. She became Sen. Graham’s first full-time grants staffer.

“Between the networking and the coursework, my master’s degree certainly paved the way for my job in Washington,” said Mathia. “I just fell in love with the family feel and tight-knit community the SLIS program had to offer, and the rest is kind of history.”

To read more about the Cultural Heritage Informatics Leadership doctoral program, read Emmy McLeod’s article on page X.