ead on to see what some of the USC Joint Program graduates did while working on their degrees and find out what they are doing today.
Sharmila Bhatia
Sharmila is a 1990 graduate of the Joint M.A./M.L.I.S. Program. Sharmila began her public history career while attending USC by working part-time a the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. While working on her degrees Sharmila also worked as an intern a the South Caroliniana Library where she gained the very different experience of working in a manuscript repository. In 1990 she was hired as a full time employee of the agency as a reference archivist. Sharmila also maintains the library held by the Department of Archives and History and has recently converted the card catalog to an on-line system. Since graduation Sharmila has been involved with the South Carolina Library Association. She has held the positions of secretary, vice-chair and chair of the Archives and Special Collections Round Table. Currently Sharmila is active in the Public Services Section of the SCLA. Sharmila has found her experiences in the joint program extremely valuable. She describes her experience in the Joint Program as positive, "While historical knowledge and applications are important, in today's archives computer applications, cataloging, reference skills, and practical experience are equally if not more important. The joint program allowed me to study history as well as learn about library applications."
Colleen Bradley
Colleen is a 1996 graduate of the Joint M.A./M.L.I.S. Program. Colleen came to USC from her native Colorado. Before entering the Joint Program she gained a bachelors degree in international relations from the University of Denver. Colleen also spent two and a half years in Thailand as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English to schoolchildren. Throughout her years at USC Colleen worked on various graduate assistantships and part-time jobs. She worked at the Coleman-Karesh Law Library on the USC campus, the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, and at Modern Political Collections archives. Upon completing her degrees Colleen was hired as a manuscripts archivist on a NHPRC grant project for the Colorado Historical Society where she helped process the papers of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. She also worked in the Education and Administrative departments of the Historical Society and as a volunteer for the Archives at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Today Colleen is the librarian for Special Expeditions a specialty cruise company in Manhattan specializing in environmentally responsible travel to unusual destinations.
Rita Wallace
After graduation in May, 1991, from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), with a bachelors degree in history, Rita entered the University of South Carolina the following fall to pursue an archival administration degree in the joint M.A./M.L.I.S. program. Before going to UALR, Rita raised two children and worked as a legal secretary. A variety of assistantships, work studies and internships provided the funds for this non-traditional student to get her masters' degrees. One thing Rita was always able to do was find a job at one of Columbia's many public history institutions.During the first year at USC, Rita worked part-time as a library technician at the Coleman-Karesh Law Library to earn a tuition break and in the manuscript division of South Caroliniana Library on the work study program. Her second year, she worked as an editing assistant with the Biographical Directory of the South Carolina House of Representatives project which was sponsored by the South Carolina
Department of Archives and History.
Two assistantships, one processing manuscripts at the South Caroliniana Library and the other working as an editorial assistant on a documentary editing project, The Papers of Henry
Laurens, provided invaluable work skills. While finishing her studies, Rita began a two and a half year project processing the records of a defunct South Carolina state agency, the South Carolina State Dispensary, which she turned into a thesis. In the summer of
1995, Rita was hired as the administrative assistant at the Model Editions Partnership, a NHPRC grant funded project working to establish editorial guidelines for publishing historical documents in electronic form.
After graduation in August, 1996, Rita began work as a Court
Historian/Archivist for the U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, Ohio. Projects underway at the Sixth Circuit Archives include interviewing and editing oral histories, editing and writing biographies of Article III judges and the publication of an electronic history of the Sixth Circuit.
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