JWHA Journal Editor: Dr. Ken Mulliken
Dr. Ken Mulliken serves as Editor of The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, bringing to the role a long-standing commitment to Restoration history, interdisciplinary scholarship, higher-education leadership, and careful editorial practice.
A native of Independence, Missouri, Mulliken grew up within the Restoration tradition and attended Pleasant Heights RLDS Congregation. His interest in church history was shaped in part by his mother, Frances, whose work A Restoration Heritage chronicled their family’s involvement in the Restoration Movement since the Nauvoo era. As a high school student, he wrote several Daily Breads, and as a college student, Mulliken also organized “Trek for Africa,” a 1,382-mile bicycling awareness project for Outreach International that raised nearly $20,000 for comprehensive human-development initiatives in three African nations.
Mulliken’s graduate work focused directly on RLDS and Community of Christ history. His master’s thesis at the University of Missouri–Columbia examined the Supreme Directional Control controversies in the RLDS Church, which was later included as a chapter in Let Contention Cease: The Dynamics of Dissent in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, edited by Roger Launius and W. B. “Pat” Spillman. He earned his interdisciplinary Ph.D. from the University of Missouri–Kansas City, with History as the coordinating discipline and the Social-Science Consortium (Sociology, Political Science, and Economics) as the co-discipline. His dissertation, Historical Amnesia: Corporate Identity and Collective Memory in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1915-2001, which bridged the humanities and social sciences in its approach to RLDS/Community of Christ history, received the Mormon History Association’s Gerald E. Jones Outstanding Dissertation Award.
Mulliken has served JWHA in multiple capacities over the years, including as Executive Secretary from 2003 to 2005. During his years in Independence, he and his wife, Wendy, lived at the Heritage Plaza Historic Site, across from the Community of Christ Auditorium, where they gave tours of the Jones Flournoy House and the Frederick M. Smith Study. He also directed the Nauvoo Summer Interns for several years, succeeding Alma Blair in that role.
Professionally, Mulliken has spent much of his career in higher education as a historian, teacher, academic administrator, editor, and program builder. He served for ten years as Professor of History and Global Studies at the University of Saint Mary, where he chaired the department, directed the Lawrence D. Starr Global Studies Institute, edited its annual journal, and received the Sullivan Award for Teaching Excellence. He later became the founding Executive Director of the Southern Oregon University Honors College, where he developed the college’s curriculum, co-initiated “The Democracy Project,” and organized international study experiences comparing models of democracy around the world.
Mulliken subsequently served as Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education and Institutional Effectiveness at the University of Illinois Springfield and as Vice President for Academic Affairs at Marian University. Across these roles, he worked extensively with faculty, academic programs, accreditation, institutional effectiveness, publications, student learning, and mission-centered leadership. His professional experience also includes academic writing, editing, grant writing, conference planning, public history, assessment, and digital communication.
As Editor of the JWHA Journal, Mulliken is committed to encouraging rigorous, readable, and meaningful scholarship on the Restoration tradition broadly understood, including the histories of Community of Christ, the Reorganization, Latter Day Saint movements, related religious communities, and the many local, institutional, theological, cultural, and global contexts in which those histories have unfolded. He is especially interested in supporting both established scholars and emerging voices whose work deepens understanding of the Restoration past and its continuing significance. Reflecting on his editorial role, Mulliken observes:
“As Editor of the JWHA Journal, I hope to honor the journal’s strong scholarly tradition while helping it adapt to a changing intellectual landscape. Artificial intelligence is already reshaping research, writing, editing, and publication, and historians must learn to engage it ethically without surrendering the human judgment and documentary rigor at the heart of our work.
I am committed to welcoming emerging scholars, including early-career faculty, graduate students, independent researchers, and international contributors, so that JWHA’s conversations become broader, deeper, and more globally engaged. I also hope to encourage interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary submissions that place history in conversation with adjacent fields such as religious studies, theology, sociology, anthropology, political science, literary studies, cultural studies, archival studies, digital humanities, and peace and conflict studies. The journal should remain historically grounded while also welcoming other scholarly approaches that deepen our understanding of the Restoration tradition and its many contexts.
My own work as editor has emphasized values-based historical analysis and a fractal historical method, attending to patterns that appear across denominations, institutions, congregations, families, communities, and individual lives.
I am deeply grateful for the excellent editorial team of Peter Judd, David Howlett, and John Hamer, whose judgment, experience, and generosity strengthen the journal at every stage. I believe Restoration history is strongest when it is rigorous, humane, expansive, collaborative, and attentive to meaning.”
Dr. Mulliken and his wife, Wendy, live in Independence, Missouri. They have two adult daughters and two grandchildren.
