Mathews currently advises and assists the the Center for Real Dialogue in engaging with college campuses to introduce dialogue training into college curricula. Ensuring that students, staff and faculty have the ability to engage in difficult dialogues about polarizing topics, without dehumanizing one side or the other, is an emerging transferable skill for the 21st Century.

Mathews served as the Provost and Executive Vice President at Central Michigan University (CMU) from 2022-2024. Serving as the chief academic officer, Mathews oversaw a team of 12 vice provosts, academic vice presidents and deans, responsible for 500 faculty members, and more than 14,000 students among seven colleges, including the College of Medicine. She also oversaw the Office of Research and Graduate Studies and Innovation and On-line (life-long learning), and 60% of the total university budget of $435m. During this period, Mathews spear-headed the 2023-2028 Central Michigan University Strategic Plan, engaging more than 1300 faculty, staff and students in the planning process. Mathews also initiated and led an innovative approach, based on Scenario Planning, to create the university’s first Academic Vision and Plan. With the creative input from multiple teams of more than 170 administrators, faculty, staff and students, this 20-year academic vision lays out a pathway for CMU to grow and thrive in the 21st Century. The vision sets forth an imperative to create a new university business model that transcends long-term enrollment declines in degree-seeking, high school students. She served as a key member of the College of Medicine's Expansion Steering Committee that led the consolidation of the educational programs in the city of Saginaw and initiated the planning for a state-of-the-art medical educational building. Mathews has earned a reputation as a team builder, change agent, and a collaborative executive leader. Her versatile communications skills ensure transparency and inclusivity and position her as a university leader with bold vision.

As dean of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, Mathews served as the chief academic and administrative officer of the School. In this role she provided academic leadership to the faculty, staff and students on matters related to the teaching and learning, research and discovery, community and global engagement, development and student affairs within the school. Over the eight year period, she raised nearly $29 million in gift funds and quadrupled extramural grant funding from $3.5 m annually to $11m. The University of Vermont (UVM) is one of the nation’s premier small public research universities, and has long been nationally recognized for its leadership in environmental programs and practices. The university-wide Environmental Program, founded in 1972, is one of the first programs of its kind in the country. The Rubenstein School offers a rich history of interdisciplinary programs, including Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Forestry, Natural Resources, Parks/Recreation and Tourism, and Wildlife and Fisheries Biology. It also is home to several premier research centers, the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, the Ecosystem Science Laboratory on Lake Champlain and the USGS Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. The School has a deep commitment to integrated learning and discovery as well as to community based learning and engagement. Under Mathews' leadership, the School revised its mission and vision and created a bold strategic plan, grounded in environmental justice and sustainability.

As a member of the Higher Learning Commission's Board of Trustees, the Board members held final responsibility for all accreditation actions. The Board of Trustees has primary responsibility in three areas: (1) Commission policy; (2) Commission finances and planning; and (3) institutional actions: direct decision-making regarding initial status, sanction, withdrawal of accreditation, and change of ownership.

As director of the Morgridge Center for Public Service, Mathews served as both Faculty Director and Executive director, overseeing curricular, community-based learning, co-curricular volunteer programs and operations for the Center. The mission of the Center is to connect campus with the community through service, service learning and community based research to build a thriving democratic society. The Center leads campus in preparing students for lifelong civic engagement by building capacity, in partnership with the community, to solve complex problems locally and globally. The Center's flagship Badger Volunteer program grew from 150 students to 1300 students over the past four years and now serves over 100 nonprofits in Dane County. The Center supported engaged scholarship on campus through the Morgridge Match program, a 5yr and $5 million matching grant program to enhance community based learning and research locally and globally. The rapid expansion of Badger Volunteers and service learning courses in the environment has put the Morgridge Center on the map as a center of note with respect to advancing sustainability programs.

Mathews attained Emerita Professor status, at University of Wisconsin Madison in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, in 2014. Over the 19 years at UW Madison she conducted research on Brown- headed Cowbird behavior, white-tailed deer behavior and genetics, chronic wasting disease, and community-based conservation and biodiversity. Her research programs provided the foundation for much of her instructional program while also providing outcome-based, management strategies for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to contain the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease. Beginning in 1996, she created an first-of-its-kind undergraduate capstone course in conservation planning for endangered species and a graduate course in the emerging discipline of ecosystem management. She instructed these courses using issue-driven, project based, service learning that engaged state and federal agencies as instructional partners. These types of pedagogy are now considered High Impact Practices, and have been shown to increase the academic performance of all students. The interdisciplinary nature of resource management guided her efforts in both her instructional and research programs, ensuring that students were well-prepared for real-world challenges. Students learned and practiced transferable skills that allowed them to excel at problem solving and team work.

As director of institutional reaccreditation for UW–Madison from 2007 to 2009, I designed and directed the self-study process that ultimately resulted in the University's affirmation of accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission. This process defined the vision for the University for the next decade and led to the development of the current strategic plan. Engaging over 6,000 constituents to share input about creating the future university, the self study led to tangible innovations that resulted in the creation of the Global Health Institute and the Office of Sustainability, among others. The self-study process succeeded because it valued the culture of shared governance and the tradition of “sifting and winnowing,” while preserving our tradition of independence.

As chair of the graduate program in Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, Mathews oversaw curriculum, recruitment and admissions of graduate students into the program. The Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development Program (CBSD) empowers its graduates with the knowledge, skills, and experience to advance effective and equitable strategies for conserving biodiversity and promoting sustainable living. CBSD's unique curriculum combines studies of the nature and value of diversity with studies of the economic and social dimensions of development. The program leads to a master of science (M.S.) degree in conservation biology and sustainable development.

Mathews served as the Assistant Unit Leader for Wildlife in the Texas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX. In this role she oversaw a research laboratory of a dozen graduate students and instructed graduate courses in the Department of Range and Wildlife at Texas Tech University.

As a post-doctoral research associate, Mathews organized and led a national workshop on white-tailed deer genetics and management at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

As a Field biologist with EG&G, Energy Measurements, Mathews served as an endangered species specialist assessing the impacts of oil and gas development on the San Joaquin kit fox, blunt-nosed leopard lizard and giant kangaroo rat in the San Joaquin Valley, California. In this role she also conducted surveys at the Nevada Test Site and the Savannah River National Laboratory.