The newest chapter of a progressive national student think tank has cropped up in an unlikely place: conservative stronghold Brigham Young University.

The Roosevelt Institution is a Washington-based nonprofit that encourages students to get involved in local and national politics by writing policy proposals and lobbying them to lawmakers. As a 501(c)3, it is by definition nonpartisan, but has found acceptance largely among schools with liberal reputations, mostly along the Eastern Seaboard. Club President Tanner Harmon, a senior political science student, said that didn't deter him from pushing for a chapter in Provo in the spring.

"I thought, 'Why not try to start something at BYU and be affiliated with all the prestigious universities across the countryfi' " he said. "I definitely was questioned -- not by the administration, per se, but by my faculty adviser. He talked to me several times about the history of the club."

The institution was started by students at Stanford and Yale after the 2004 presidential elections and has since spread to about 100 colleges and universities, including the majority of the Ivy League schools and other notables like Johns Hopkins University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. BYU's nearest neighbor clubs include the University of Colorado and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Amy Steinhoff, the institution's western regional coordinator, said she was surprised to learn in the spring that there was interest in starting a chapter at such a traditionally conservative school. But it was the students who first made an inquiry, she said.

"Having a chapter at BYU wouldn't necessarily be something we would have predicted," Steinhoff said. "You just wouldn't assume that that much organic commitment to a progressive organization would come from BYU."

Harmon learned about the institute while interning in U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett's Washington office. He was assigned to help respond to questions about health care policy -- something that has become a passion since then, he said. A lot of BYU premed students have joined the club since its October inception, finding it a meaningful way to get involved in the local and national health discussion, he said.

"All of them loved the idea of preparing for med school by becoming politically involved with health policy, because a lot of physicians aren't," Harmon said.

Though the Roosevelt Institution encourages students to get involved in a wide swath of political issues, the BYU club will focus on health items in the short term, Harmon said. The club hosted a presentation Wednesday night by a Salt Lake City health care actuary. Several others, including doctors and lawmakers, are in talks about coming to campus for similar events.

"We're trying to educate students by inviting people who have a role in health care in different ways," he said. "We want to understand the whole spectrum of each problem."

Membership is small but growing, Harmon said, and there are plans in the spring to get involved in a coordinated research effort with other chapters across the country. That will probably involve advocacy work with city councils and members of the state Legislature at some point, he said.

"That's definitely in the plans," he said.

• Ace Stryker can be reached at 344-2556 or astryker@heraldextra.com.