A Morning at the Heritage Foundation

During my time in graduate school, I plan on learning as much as I can, but I also plan on challenging myself. That was my motivation in covering the Heritage Foundation’s panel on reforming the United Nations this morning.

Admittedly, my knowledge of the UN is limited. If I have any regrets in my choice, it’s that I decided to cover a story about a topic that I did not have background knowledge to go off of.

In the end, while I probably should have chosen a topic I know better, I am grateful that I had this opportunity to get out into Washington, DC and cover a story featuring well-known newsmakers.

The Heritage Foundation and the UN

The United Nations has received of ample criticism in recent years, much of it coming from the Heritage Foundation. The conservative think tank hosted a discussion on what it sees as the organization’s needed reforms to coincide with the release of the book, “Conundrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives.”

Kim Holmes, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the heritage foundation and assistant secretary of state under George W. Bush, gave his theory as to why the United States has had such a hard time instituting reform in the United Nations.

“All too often, the failures and inefficiencies of the UN are tolerated because to many people in New York . . . the United Nations is really more of an idea,” Holmes said. “It’s a process; it’s a way of life that’s actually an ideological cause more than it is a real institution that’s supposed to be held accountable for solving problems . . . and when it falls short, many people who look at it that way, say . . . ‘whatever you do, don’t hold it accountable because you’ll discredit the idea.’”

In addition to criticizing the United Nations, the speakers offered solutions they asserted would increase the accountability and transparency of the organizations’ programs.

Multiple panelists commented that the only way to force reform was to threaten the UN with financial consequences.

John Bolton, George W. Bush’s controversial pick for U.S. ambassador to the UN, has been pushing to make the funding the member organizations provide voluntary – meaning Congress can decide whether to allocate funds. He said, “If we push for this idea and Congress doesn’t see progress, Congress can withhold the funding.”

Bolton explained, “The record of existing UN agencies that have voluntary funding, I think, shows the wisdom [of making funding of the UN voluntary] – in the World Food Program, the High Commission for Refugees and others – these are some of the most efficient and effective and transparent UN agencies because their managers know that if they don’t perform, member governments can take their funding elsewhere.”

The Heritage Foundation has a history of criticizing the United Nations. According to Edwin Feulner, the Heritage Foundation’s president, foundation members began working on reforming the institution in 1982. He explained some of the findings.

“Our critical assessments [on the United Nations] have contributed to exposing mismanagement, inefficiency and abuse in the system and helped to advise the Congress in multiple administrations on strategies to address those challenges,” Feulner said.

Despite the criticism all the panelists offered of the United Nations, no one advocated for the United States pulling out of the organization completely. Regardless of the weakness they see in the institution as a whole, the speakers will willing to admit, as Holmes said, “the UN’s not a cause, it’s not just an idea. It’s a diplomatic tool like any other.”

“Just because we are critical, just because we say there are flaws, doesn’t mean . . . we can’t work with the UN, but it also means there may be other ways we have to work around it, to bypass it because at the end of the day, the very ideals the UN stands for – international peace, human rights and prosperity – these ideas are actually bigger than the UN,” Holmes said. “The UN alone cannot provide them, and if we’re going to exercise leadership by the United States, we have to find ways to work both in and outside the UN.”

The Challenges of Reporting on a Tight Deadline

I’ve had plenty of experience with deadlines, whether in my classes throughout my academic career, or while I was first a reporter and then an editor for the Valley Star, but today was different.

In my Reporting on Public Affairs class, my professor, Sam Fulwood, sent my classmates and I out with the instructions to find a story, conduct interviews, write up a full transcription of the interviews, write the story and have it in by 5 p.m. Today was my first taste of what it would be like in a newsroom of a daily paper, and I’ve learned that it will take a lot of getting used to.

It wasn’t finding the story (I went to American’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally Resource Center, where the director and coordinator were happy to sit down with me and answer my questions) or writing the story (although I could have done a much better job with an extra hour or two) weren’t the hardest parts of the day; the worst aspect of the assignment was actually transcribing the interview. It’s incredible how long it takes to type of a 20-minute interview. It’s because I spent so long transcribing that I didn’t have as much time as I wanted to work on my story.

In the end, I will look at this experience as a teachable moment. I may not have been happy with my end product, but at least I proved to myself that I can put a story together on a very tight deadline. What follows is the piece I put together today. It’s not my best work, but I’m a bit rusty, and I’m happy that I got it in by deadline.

My first reporting project as a grad student

College can be a time of discovery; for some students, this might include questioning their sexuality. Staff at American University’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Ally Resource Center offers students information about issues concerning the GLBT community or simply a sympathetic ear.

“It gives a voice to a minority, Cody Steele, the resource center’s safe space coordinator, said. “It’s important to have a resource for students who are either struggling with identity, or who are looking to find a community.”

Matthew Bruno, program coordinator of the GLBTA Resource Center, and Sara Bendoraitis, the center’s director, and the staff of student workers and volunteers are available to counsel students.

“If students are having a hard time coming out . . .“if they have an issue with roommates, we welcome them to come and talk with us,” Bruno said. “If they need advice on how to talk about their identity with someone else, or advice on who to go to . . . we’ll pass them on to someone else who has better expertise in that area.”

The staff aims to create a safe space, not only within their office, but throughout the campus through their Safe Space Program for those who want to become allies and provide support for the GLBT community.

Bruno, described an ally as “someone who takes some action steps towards creating a better environment for GLBT people, . . .” He explained, “It doesn’t have to be these huge mammoth things that we’re asking people to do, but just to understand their own place in the world and to see how they kind of fit into a cycle which perpetuates homophobia and heterosexism.”

One of the projects the center is working on is a guide for transgender students. The center will also offer a Trans 101 workshop, which will “be a more in-depth look at the transgender identity and what goes under [it]” and focus on “health . . . [and] legal concerns for the trans community,” Bruno said.

Although one of part of the center’s mission is to provide a safe space for homosexual or transgender students on campus, Bendoraitis, said, “I think the campus is pretty safe overall.”  While she described a 2007 incident that “started out as just a name-calling spat between two people that ended up getting physical,” she went said, “I think the typical campus incident is stuff like people throwing names around or writing things on white boards . . . And not to diminish the impact of those, but compared to what could happen, they’re pretty minor things that tend to happen on campus.”

In addition to providing students with information about issues in the GLBT community, the resource center is also attempting to create stronger relationships with courses that focus on gender and sexuality. In addition to allowing faculty and students to use their library of books relating to gender and sexuality issues, the center publishes a list of GLBT and GLBT-friendly courses each semester.

Bruno said, “ Our events hope to connect to students’ academic courses or allow them to explore a new area that they’ve never dealt with before in their academic endeavors.”

Matthew Bruno, program coordinator of the GLBTA Resource Center, explained what the center is there for, saying, “We’re also a safe space . . . for people to hang out in, and to be able to come into this space and be who they are, even if they can’t be who they are in their dorm room, in their classroom, in the hallway.”