Editor’s note: This feature first ran in a special publication called Hometown Pride, published June 30, 2020, featuring people and organizations from Fort Dodge and the surrounding area who are making a difference in their communities.

LEHIGH — Recent Buena Vista University graduate Lena Gripp got to experience the weeks leading up to the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses this year from a different angle.

Rather than just being a target for the many different presidential campaigns to persuade her to caucus for their candidate, Gripp spent time talking to other potential caucusgoers about one of the largest issues of the election — immigration.

During BVU’s January Term, where students spend three weeks taking a specialized course in an area that interests them, Gripp signed up for a podcasting class.

“We thought it was going to be more human interest-focused,” Gripp said.

Instead, the class focused more on current events.

“We talked a lot about the caucus and different politics,” she said. “We took a three- or four-day trip to Des Moines and we went to different campaign rallies and collected audio from people that were there.”

Inspired by a friend and classmate at BVU, Gripp and her partner for the project, Isabel Haas, chose to highlight the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

“We interviewed a bunch of people about what their views were about it,” Gripp said. “We chose it because a friend of ours we go to school with, her family immigrated to the U.S. when she was younger and we talked to her about her perspective of the program.”

The students’ final product can be found at https://soundcloud.com/lena-gripp.

“One of the big cool things about doing the project was reaching out and talking to people in a setting I would not have normally been in,” Gripp explained. “We just kind of walked up to anyone if we thought they looked like they had something to say, one way or another. If they were willing to talk about it, we were willing to listen to what they had to say.”

A major lesson Gripp learned while doing her podcast project was how to leave her own comfort zone and walk up to complete strangers to ask their opinions on a very controversial subject.

“Just walking up to people and saying, ‘Hey, what’s your opinion on this?’ was kind of something that will end up helping me a lot in the future,” she said.

Gripp didn’t always want to be a journalist. In fact, her first major was music technology and production. When she took a photojournalism class trip to Ireland in 2018, she realized she was in the wrong major and switched to digital media.

The Lehigh native graduated with her bachelor’s degree from BVU this May after publishing her senior capstone project, where she traveled to all 99 counties in Iowa and photographed a small town of less than 1,000 people.

“That was kind of neat because, at that point, I knew how to go up to people and say, ‘Hey, how is your town doing?'” she said. “I think my DACA podcast helped me teach myself how to branch out a little bit.”

Now that she’s graduated, Gripp is planning on working in an AmeriCorps position in BVU’s office of engagement to help broaden her communication and networking skills. Though, eventually she wants to do more photography-based work, like shooting for National Geographic or other magazine publications.

Gripp and Haas won second place for their podcast from the Society for Collegiate Journalists National Contest in April.