Mallen Urso ’12: College of Charleston Fund Scholarship

Mallen Urso is a morning person. Her work lately, though, has required her to be an afternoon, evening and night person, too.

That’s because last summer Urso packed in plenty of 16-hour days as a field organizer for a candidate running in a special S.C. Senate election. “I was so tired, but I was so excited and so happy,” says Urso, whose candidate lost by just 14 votes out of the more than 6,000 cast by Charleston-area residents. The narrow defeat, however, didn’t get her down. In fact, it encouraged her to get even more involved, so Urso interned with the S.C. New Democrats, an organization that intends to bolster the Palmetto State’s Democratic Party through the use of digital media and the recruitment of young people.

This work builds on Urso’s previous internships and research. Last spring as a junior, Urso interned for the National Women’s Political Caucus in Washington, D.C. And as a sophomore, she worked with political science professor and associate provost Lynne Ford on an independent study of women in South Carolina politics. South Carolina, notes Urso, has the lowest percentage of female legislators in the country.

Like more than 280 other students, Mallen attended the College with the help of a scholarship provided by the College of Charleston Fund. After graduation last spring, she moved to the nation’s capital to dive deeper into politics. She also plans to keep an eye open for more campaign work, even if it means exhausting 16-hour days. You see, when the morning always seems to come too soon, it helps to be a morning person. As Urso says, “I love the work I’m doing.”

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