By David Preece
There?s been a lot of attention paid lately to ORCA grants, and rightly so. I?d estimate that BYU?s system for handing out research grants is among the finest in the country ? really, any student who has a great idea can find a mentor, compose a proposal and receive $1,250 to carry out that idea. It?s literally that simple, and a blessing to all students.
But beware if you want to go overseas ? I learned the hard way that other aspects of BYU?s bureaucratic process are magnitudes more cumbersome than actually earning a grant, even more cumbersome than the U.S. Department of Defense, as incredible as that may sound.
Now those who went through the process of earning a grant last year and have looked at ORCA?s web page this year might notice that there?s a little more information on international projects after the last round of awards. You know how people joke about warning labels existing because someone was stupid enough to necessitate that label? Well, you might want to thank me for the additional warnings on conducting research abroad.
Let me tell you a little bit about my experience. My mentor and I submitted a creative proposal to photographically research the everyday lives of active duty Naval sailors stationed on an aircraft carrier. Before we even entered the idea to ORCA, I arranged with Norfolk Naval Air Station to embark on one of their carriers and spend some time with the seamen. Sounds pretty good, huh? I thought so, and so did ORCA, so I was awarded a grant.
However, things began to fall apart about the time I got my check. I called my contact in Naval public affairs only to find that they changed their minds about me and I couldn?t stay on a vessel longer than two days. Two days are better than nothing, I thought, but I decided that if BYU was going to invest $1,250 in myself, I?d better find a way to do something for a longer period of time.
So I called the US Department of Defense media office in the Pentagon and asked how I might arrange to embed with troops on the ground in Iraq. They pointed me in the right direction, and to make a long story short, two weeks after I made that call, I had a slot to embed with Task Force Liberty of the 42nd Infantry Division in an area of northern Iraq called Kirkuk. As a print journalism major and an aspiring photojournalist, I couldn?t have been happier ? I unwittingly traded a great option for a spectacular one.
Unfortunately, BYU didn?t share my enthusiasm. My editor here at the paper decided to ask the Communications Department for more money so I could buy airfare to Kuwait and protective ballistics gear. As this request went up the chain, it eventually landed on the desk of BYU?s International Affairs Vice President. She didn?t like the possibility of bad press coverage, should I get hurt or killed in Iraq, and contacted the ORCA office (which I should have consulted with on a regular basis as I altered my plan). The ORCA office acted as a mediator between the two of us, because she wanted them to revoke my funding, and they refused to do so. They ended up asking me to change my plan again for everyone?s best interest. BYU?s policy is that no student can travel anywhere on the U.S. Department of State Travel Warning list.
Now, lest I ruffle too many feathers, let it be said that I realize the policy is there for a reason. But I made the choice to go to Iraq (I was just halted by the powers that be here at the university and never got to go on the trip of a lifetime). Isn?t this what the ORCA grant system is for? Of course there are risks in going to a war-torn country, but those are risks I decided to take. That?s what journalists do ? we go places others will not or cannot so we can tell the world what is happening there.
I do not begrudge the administrators of BYU for stopping me and understand that they have my safety to worry about. But is it not also ironic that I was able to work through the Pentagon, one of the largest and most complex organizations in the world, but not able to work through BYU?s bureaucracy? Perhaps we need to rework our system to make it a little more efficient, especially if it is harder to deal with than the government.