Comments on: MHA: Guest Post: My First MHA Experience

By: Todd C

Todd C — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 06:09:59 +0000

And I enjoyed meeting you, Kevin, as your article is really a good one. Yes, MHA was great. I had a very hard time choosing between sessions. Often I would attend different sessions in the same hour. I met a number of people who have already helped me with my research, which is one of the great advantages of these conferences.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:14:46 +0000

Bill, thank you for reading this. It would be great to be able to listen to recordings of the other sessions. Even when I had to attend second or third choices, the sessions were still enjoyable. To that extent, I guess it’s like reading through old journals, in that you don’t know what other gems you might run across. I do congratulate you and the board for a job well done in St. George.

By: Bill MacKinnon

Bill MacKinnon — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 22:45:21 +0000

Thanks to Kevin Folkman for these great insights. They’re very helpful to MHA’s Board in making changes. I’m delighted that the Folkmans made it from Seattle and that so many others did likewise. (Nine of my children, grandkids, and cousins traveled to St. George from five states and enjoyed the experience a great deal.)
Kevin’s comment about the Newcomers’ Breakfast identifies a lamentable snafu for which I apologize, and Ardis is correct that this won’t happen again. I had planned on being there, but was diverted to a 6:30 breakfast with Elder Jensen, Rick Turley, and Reid Neilson, but that doesn’t explain why no one from the Board or staff was there to greet you and start the session. Mea Culpa!
As for the average age of the attendees, the only thing that I can say is that MHA’s Board has been trying mightily to make sure that MHA is welcoming to students and younger members. For the past five years or so, a graduate student has been elected a member of the Board (currently Christopher C. Jones of William & Mary, who has just succeed Jenny Reeder of George Mason U.) to make sure that we are staying in touch, and the Friday evening student receptions at the conferences that I’ve attended at both Independence and St. George were a lot of fun. I’d note that a substantial number of the annual MHA awards announced at the annual conference have gone to younger rather than greyer scholars, including undergraduates and graduate students.
As for the picking and choosing between concurrent sessions, it is, alas, a real dilemma. In part to met this issue, the new president of MHA, Richard L. Jensen, worked mightily at St. George to record the plenary and concurrent sessions, with the thought in mind that if the technical stuff worked properly, we would try to post recordings to MHA’s website so that you might download them free. Richard is now working with the recordings, and we’ll see if the quality is acceptable. Check MHA’s website (www.mhahome.org) periodically to see how this effort turns out, and perhaps Ardis could keep you Keepa readers current on this one too.
Thanks again to Kevin for his guest blog. See you in Calgary at the end of June 2012, if not sooner.
Cheers!
Bill MacKinnon
President, MHA 2010-2011

By: kevinf

kevinf — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:35:22 +0000

Mark, I was just pointing to the lowest bar for official entry into senior citizen status. I’m no fan of Chuckarama. Even the name has an unfortunate and unintended sense of onomatopoeia.

By: Researcher

Researcher — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:53:17 +0000

Yikes! I’m going to start feeling sheepish that I brought up the subject of age!

Thanks for the numbers though, Christopher. Good to hear.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 16:32:14 +0000

One solution, Kevin, is to never eat at Chuckarama! : )

By: kevinf

kevinf — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:55:00 +0000

Mark, I know my drivers license says I’m 59 (still just shy of qualifying as a senior citizen at Chuckarama), but I often don’t recognize the gray haired guy in the mirror. I thought these folks seemed older to me, but under enhanced interrogation I might have to admit that they are probably around my age. Hence the confusion, another tell tale sign of creeping middle age. Only that the creeping is in the other direction now.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:21:18 +0000

I’d think, Kevin, that you’d be a bit more careful about writing “a lot of older folks” and “average age … in the 50 to 65 range” in the same paragraph.

Some of us might take it personally.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:09:06 +0000

For what it’s worth–this was the second largest conference in MHA history (over 700 in attendance; just behind SLC a few years ago), and there were more students than ever before (over 60 registered, and at least 50 showed up for the student banquet Friday night). Compare that with the number of students in attendance at the SLC conference and it’s nearly doubled. So my sense is that the average age has actually gotten younger the last few years.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:58:56 +0000

In the few years I’ve been involved with MHA, I’ve noticed how old the average attender is (a lot of people with leisure time use MHA as a travel agency, especially when the meeting is in some Mormon-glam spot like Nauvoo or Vermont; at the Vermont conference, especially, I could hardly believe how many very elderly people were there, and how they treated us presenters as shipboard entertainment, and pushed their way to the front of any line where free food was involved — grrr, I didn’t like that conference at all) — but I’ve also noticed how young the bulk of the presenters are. I think that bodes well for the future of Mormon history. As Clark says, time is a factor, and as Jared’s situation proves, family concerns are most urgent for younger scholars, so maybe that accounts in part for the disparity between presenter and listener.