From My Informant: Is DCP Finished as Editor of the Review?

[_Doctor Scratch]

Well, live and learn. The Review's been a great resource but is probably too hot. Shouldn't been at BYU.

Well, Bob, the Review is still salvagable. Maybe--provided that the texts are legitimate, of course--there will be a kind of renaissance under the new editorial leadership.

[_Chap]

... the time has come for us to take the Review in a different direction, along the lines of the prospectus I gave you. ...

Do we know what that prospectus said? Is its text available?

[_Doctor Scratch]

... the time has come for us to take the Review in a different direction, along the lines of the prospectus I gave you. ...

Do we know what that prospectus said? Is its text available?

Hi, Chap. I haven't seen the prospectus, but I think you ask a good question. What *did* it say? Clearly, it was something that DCP didn't want to address, because he skipped town without responding to Bradford.

[_Kishkumen]

Well, Bob, the Review is still salvagable. Maybe--provided that the texts are legitimate, of course--there will be a kind of renaissance under the new editorial leadership.

Personally, all I had hoped would happen was an end to the practice of sliming of members. I really don't have any problem with people arguing in defense of their beliefs. It is all the innuendo, insulting, and so forth that the Review could do without. Even if it is a small portion of what they do, it was a shameful blot on its record, and a shameful blot on the university that supports it. Far better to be done with the skinny-l slam tactics and turn to more interesting and legitimate scholarship.

[_Yoda]

(Moderator Note) Since many of you seem to feel that my friendship with Dan affects my Moderating decisions, I am opting out of moderating this thread and Scratch's corresponding thread. I have, however, brought both of these threads to the Moderator Forum's attention. If any action is taken in either thread, it will not be done by me.

[_The Dude]

Well, Bob, the Review is still salvagable. Maybe--provided that the texts are legitimate, of course--there will be a kind of renaissance under the new editorial leadership.

Personally, all I had hoped would happen was an end to the practice of sliming of members. I really don't have any problem with people arguing in defense of their beliefs. It is all the innuendo, insulting, and so forth that the Review could do without.

I doubt those things could have changed without this event. The people make the culture.

[_Kishkumen]

I doubt those things could have changed without this event. The people make the culture.

Maybe you are right, but I have to tell you, in reading a number of the essays in the Review, I have found some of them very interesting reading. Louis Midgley, in particular, has written some fine stuff. I would rate him as the best of the crew in terms of the intellectual heft he added to their publications.

And yet there is this side of him that drove him to assault his opponents verbally in public, as well as write some fairly nasty things about them.

Aside from that though, he has done some highly laudable things. His finest contribution to the LDS community may have been his opposition to Reed Benson's Bircher nuttiness on BYU campus. His paean to the departed Hugh Nibley is a gorgeous little piece of writing (I am biased by my affection for Dr. Nibley, however). So, it is not like I hate these guys or wished them ill. I have genuine admiration for their great talents and contributions.

This was just such an ugly facet of their lives and the LDS intellectual community. A small, but significant blotch on their great merits.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

First off.. Liz does a great job as Mod.

Secondly, the "Review" really needs to go away. People know the deal.

Thirdly, if Mr. Peterson is truly a "Middle Eastern Scholar" then he just needs to focus on his field and stop with all this nonsense.

- VRDRC

[_degaston]

The Exec Director of the Maxwell Institute allegedly wrote:

"I’m sensitive to the fact that there are those who would love nothing better than to make something of a change in editors and I’m concerned that we not give them any grounds to do this. I would appreciate any ideas you have along these lines that I might include in this announcement. Please be assured that, while brief, it will be positive and will highlights the important things that the Review has achieved under your helm during the past two decades plus. It will also indicate that the recently christened Mormon Studies Review is going to chart a new course, with a new editorial team, one that will bring it explicitly in-line with the scholarly agenda of the Institute, that will ensure that it clearly complements the Journal and Studies, and that will further enable it to make solid, scholarly contributions to Mormon studies. Please let me hear from you in the next week or so. I’ll make the announcement sometime around the first of the month."

I'm betting that Jerry is NOT looking forward to this coming week at the office. DCP obvious stabbed him back and the leak completely destroyed any plans of Jerry's on how to handle this with good PR. Now its time to go back to the drawing board and also deal with this new PR fiasco simultaneously. What he was probably hoping would be a nice, easy summer is going to turn into a busy endless chain of phone calls (to subordinates/associates as he will likely NOT use email anymore for that direction on how he handles this) and lengthy status reporting up above to higherups and lots of questions answering, explaining, etc. to do damage control while at the same time trying to pretend that it's business-as-normal so that when the announcements come out they'll be able to withstand scrutiny, especially in places like here where there will be plenty of curiousity about all the behind-the-scenes happenings of this month at the Maxwell Institute and BYU (plus from the GAs' involvement) regarding this matter. In fact I'd venture that his real work has already started on how to handle all these things as one thing I've learned that almost all leaders in any business/venture do a lot of work during off hours on building coalitions and planning their strategies on how they'll further their agendas during normal hours.

[_Kishkumen]

DCP obvious stabbed him back and the leak completely destroyed any plans of Jerry's on how to handle this with good PR. Now its time to go back to the drawing board and also deal with this new PR fiasco simultaneously. What he was probably hoping would be a nice, easy summer is going to turn into a busy endless chain of phone calls (to subordinates/associates as he will likely NOT use email anymore for that direction on how he handles this) and lengthy status reporting up above to higherups and lots of questions answering, explaining, etc. to do damage control while at the same time trying to pretend that it's business-as-normal so that when the announcements come out they'll be able to withstand scrutiny, especially in places like here where there will be plenty of curiousity about all the behind-the-scenes happenings of this month at the Maxwell Institute and BYU (plus from the GAs' involvement) regarding this matter. In fact I'd venture that his real work has already started on how to handle all these things as one thing I've learned that almost all leaders in any business/venture do a lot of work during off hours on building coalitions and planning their strategies on how they'll further their agendas during normal hours.

Interesting theory. An intentional leak to make life hard for the man who canned him.