Dear BYUI Scholarship Fund...

Thank you yet again for your latest form letter, offering me your full support and assistance in helping me navigate all of my philanthropic options!  I'll admit my intelligence was a little insulted by your presumption that I couldn't figure out how to donate money all by myself--granted, that's probably true, but we're being generous today, right?  So I'll assume the best of you as you do of me.

I see you've adjusted your fundraising campaign to exploit highlight certain high-need students who are supposedly directly benefited from these dollars donated.  Now, I'd be a scoundrel with a heart of stone if I didn't admit to being moved by the stories of these students' plights.  They in fact remind me of one such a needful student, one who applied for financial aid at BYUI in his moment of need.

Twas me, in fact!  It was the summer of '07, and my senior year at Rexburg!  I was about to become the school's first ever intern in Mexico.  The good man at the Internship office helpfully informed me of a small, 1K grant I easily qualified for, one specifically for interns; given the exchange rate down south, that 1K would've helped pay my way through my entire unpaid internship.  I wasn't exactly rollin' in the dough myself (working in Idaho, the slave-wage state, did my bank account no favors), so I followed his counsel and cheerfully applied. 

I was rejected; something about me being over the limit of credit hours.  Now, I'd just been through the same process the semester previous (seems all the pre-reqs I took at my junior college back home rendered me almost dangerously overqualified when I transferred to Rexburg, go figure!)  But, I had appealed, explaining in a letter that I only needed these last 3 required classes to graduate, and I was swiftly approved to finish my final semester, no sweat.  I assumed this latest grant rejection would entail a similar formality.

I didn't even begrudge the rule forbidding students from staying on after X-number of credits.  After all, so many other students wanted the blessing of attending a Church school, and this was an easy way to make sure students didn't get too comfortable in ol' Rexburg (as though, between the crammed housing and the cold, there was any danger of that there!).  This rule kept the classroom seats free and the price-gouged, monopolized housing open for other students that wanted to be herded through as fast as possible. 

Now, back to that grant: Understanding the "spirit of the law," I happily detailed in the appeals letter how, since my internship was in Mexico, I would be taking up neither classroom seats nor housing openings; therefore, the objection that I was over my credit limit (which again, I must emphasize, was not a result of me dithering my time, but because my hometown community college apparently had higher scholastic rigor than Rexburg) did not disqualify me from the grant.  I outlined my meager financial situation, how blessed and honored I was to be the school's first ever intern in Mexico, and how much this mere 1K grant would help me south of the border.  I graciously thanked them for their time.

I was rejected again.  "You're over your credit limit," came the broken record response.

By now, even the Internship director was angry, and he promised to "fight" for me...but just something about the way he said it, the fact that BYUI Financial Aid was some sort of Kafka-esque, implacable bureaucracy that needed fighting, told me he wouldn't win.

And he didn't.  I went to Mexico anyways.  I had a wonderful time.  I really built up my CV.  I went broke.  2 weeks after I got home, sitting penniless in my Dad's house, I got a call from BYUI, asking me if I'd be willing to "support President Clarke's vision" of joining other alumni in donating to some scholarship for financially needy students. I couldn't help but laugh at the irony.  Their timing wasn't exactly exceptional.

I replied, without guile or exaggeration, "I'm gonna level with you, I have no money."  The poor caller laughed understandingly, then asked if I'd at least pledge to donate some minimum amount in the future; to make him hang up, I said sure, maybe.  (I knew the person to yell at wasn't the poor slave-waged student on the line with me).  I changed my phone number shortly thereafter.

Now, don't you worry about me, BYUI!  I scraped by as a substitute teacher, moved out again, then went and sold my soul installing security systems that summer (which is a very shady industry unworthy of your vaunted honor code, and the fact that so many desperate students in Rexburg see it as their only financial salvation in Idaho is a horrible situation in need of rectifying), then returned to Grad School.  I turned out fine.  You might even argue (like a dead-beat parent might) that leaving me out in the cold like that forced upon me self-reliance and financial responsibility and so forth.  That may be all well and good, but please don't expect me to open my wallet to you when, the one and only time I ever called upon you for any sort of aid, you closed yours to me.

For every few months or so since December '07, I get yet another letter from BYUI, following up on that phone-pledge, calling upon me for a donation.  And every few months, I read it, laugh, and throw it in the recycling bin.  You of course aren't unique BYUI, every college has its alumni foundations trying to hit up its grads.  But you are unique in claiming to represent a religion that values helping the needy, feeding the hungry, caring for the poor (I'll leave alone for now the hypocrisy that Rexburg has a law that expels the homeless from its borders), worthy principles that I can't claim to have had much experience with up there.

And who knows, maybe you've changed Rexburg, maybe you no longer stick it to students like you stuck it to me; maybe I was just an outlier, a random, isolated, unfortunate case, one that isn't typical of your normal philanthropic efforts; maybe the high-risk students you highlight in your brochures really are helped by this alumni-funded scholarship; maybe your fund really does abide by the Christ-like principles of United Order, bearing one another's burdens, and charity; maybe I'm being just a little harsh.

Maybe.

But you'll forgive me if I'm still wary, and donate my money elsewhere.  Caveat Donator.  Please quit mailing me things.

Sincerely Everything.

*Addendum: Recently, worried that I might have been unduly harsh, I let myself get talked into applying for an online adjunct position at BYUI while in grad school--I easily qualified I was told (that familiar old story), particularly given my teaching experience and such.  So I filled out all the necessary applications, worked my way through the 2-week (!) online evaluation course and phone interview...only to not even get that pittance of a job offer either, with no explanation or reasons why.  You've wasted my time for the last time Rexburg.