Home >> JWHA Newsletter >> Presidential Message 2004-2005
"In Medias Res"
Jan Shipps |
This Latin phrase meaning “in the middle of things” nicely sums up where we, the members of JWHA, find ourselves in this the fourth decade of our existence as a historical association. The object of the association’s research and reflection is a movement started by Joseph Smith, Jr., the bicentennial of whose birth will be celebrated in 2005. Behind us in the recent past is a series of exceptional annual meetings. Held around the Midwest — Nauvoo, Lake Doniphan, Council Bluffs/Omaha — they were marked by terrific McMurrin Lectures, presented by Robert Flanders, D. Michael Quinn, Richard Hughes, as well as interesting and almost uniformly excellent concurrent sessions. Great tours of nearby historic sights and a wonderful spirit of camaraderie almost made up for sometimes less than superlative accommodations.
Beside us on one side is the Community of Christ Church, an ecclesiastical organization that we study and one to which many, but by no means all of us, are affiliated by current membership and/or familial historical ties. A worshipping community most recently led by a president/prophet whose training and whose heart is thoroughly historical, this church has taken on a new name and is clearly in the process of formulating a new identity — one that connects it with its past as it moves forward into the future. Like the JWHA, it, too, is in medias res.
The same can be said for the Mormon History Association that stands on our other side. It has also had some excellent recent annual meetings. MHA (like JWHA) is currently experiencing some inevitable depersonalizing as its officers and professional staff (executive directors) struggle to modernize its operations without undercutting the feeling of shared community that comes with having mutual interests in a history that is at once inclusive and exclusive. As we are, so MHA is undergoing some growing pains. A matter of scale is involved — they are three times as big as we are. But in both directions many members participate in JWHA and MHA — this is to say that JWHA members also belong to MHA and vice versa.
Because growth signals accomplishment of desired goals, what we are going though in both organizations is somewhat bittersweet. Although we are pleased to be growing and becoming more professional, it would be wrong not to recognize and mourn the loss of the mutual companionship that comes with being smaller communities.
Ahead of us, however, is a bright future that promises much in the way of better communication among our members. We can anticipate (and, in fact, can begin to see) both a better website with a new webmaster, Michael Karpowicz, and an enhanced JWHA Newsletter, thanks to John Hamer who designed the printed program for our last conference. As I write, the Journal of the John Whitmer Historical Association is being upgraded under the capable leadership of editor Pat Spillman.
Also promised are more stable and better accommodations for future annual meetings — beginning with the one next year. The lesson we learned in 2004 is that our size creates needs for better meeting space. We must have a good-sized room for our opening session (which is usually, but not always, our McMurrin Lecture) and for our other plenary sessions. In addition, we need space for concurrent sessions in which sound does not bleed over from one room to the next. We need space for a book display and we need, as well, an area where we can share meals in common. What this means is that we need to (and will) start planning our annual meeting sites two or three years ahead.
Finally, accompanying this message are the 2005 Call for Papers (see our 4th Quarter 2004 newsletter), the announcement of plans for our 2005 meeting, and a notice that the Board approved establishing a Distinguished Senior Scholar Lecture for our annual meetings. These all signal that what stands before us as we walk confidently into the future is an unusually bright tomorrow.
—Jan Shipps
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