2021 President’s Message

Dear friends and colleagues,

Like all of you, I have been deeply impacted by current events, including the pandemic. We are awaiting test results for one of the members of our household—a health care worker who is ill with a fever and respiratory symptoms. Several friends are recovering from the coronavirus, while another is mourning the loss of her husband to the disease. 

With such devastating consequences, I am deeply grateful for MHA’s immediate past president Ignacio Garcia and his decisive leadership. He worked closely with program chairs Joseph Stuart and Anne Berryhill, as well as executive director Barbara Jones Brown, to reimagine the 2020 conference. Board members pitched in to create MHA’s first-ever digital conference, as did many scholars who joined impromptu roundtables, interviews, or conversations about the state of the field.

If you haven’t taken the opportunity to watch some of the sessions, you are missing out. There is a great interview with this year’s Leonard J. Arrington (lifetime achievement) Award recipient Rick Turley, recapping his 30+ years heading the history department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You’ll also enjoy conversations about recent books and current issues in the field. As I worked my way through the sessions, I realized that the digital format had a similar power of connection, insight, provocation, and inspiration that is a hallmark of the annual conference. Watching sessions is easy. Simply go to MHA’s new  website at www.mormonhistoryassocation.org and click on the 2020 login instructions. The conference is available to view through this fall, and is free for all current members of MHA. The website also makes it easy to renew your membership or to make a donation.

In the digital conference business meeting, Ignacio Garcia introduced the four new nominees to serve on MHA’s board of directors: Claudia Bushman, Julie Allen, Darren Parry, and Taunalyn Rutherford. We ask MHA members take a moment to read the bios of these nominees and cast your vote at [insert link]. 

The Rochester/Palmyra, New York, conference is rescheduled for June 10‒13, 2021. You’ll see much of the same great lineup of tours, speakers, and sessions originally planned for 2020. Presenters, whose sessions had already been accepted, have the option to present in 2021. We also anticipate openings for additional sessions. (See the updated Call For Papers in this newsletter.) If health conditions prohibit us from meeting in person in 2021, we plan to again present the conference digitally. We’ll keep you updated as plans unfold.

In the meantime, please stay safe. I hope we’ll see you all—in-person—in Rochester in 2021.

Jenny Lund

MHA President