March Meeting of the Mensa Foundation

 I attended the two-day planning session & meeting of the Mensa Foundation. What a high-functioning board! I came away inspired and filled with new perspectives and ideas.

Nguyen, Tamesha, me, and Jon.

New Position

It's formally approved, so I think there is no reason not to use this as a blog post excuse:

I've been appointed by the Foundation as the new Exec Editor of the Mensa Research Journal. It will be an interesting job (paying more than twice what my other Mensa jobs have) and will push me a bit to stretch and learn new things. All good.

Asking Max

Oh how fun! I just discovered that there is a way for readers to pose questions to Max the Fox. Max is the blogger on the Mensa for Kids Web site.

Preparing for Fame and Glory

Well, not really. But I am preparing to interview Dr. Frank Lawlis about ADD tomorrow. The Mensa Foundation will be editing it and making a podcast of our conversation.

When I'm done with that, I have to tidy the house in preparation fro a photographer from the Kane Country Chronicle to come out and take pictures of us to go with an article about Matt becoming the new LocSec.

Any readers have any good questions about ADD I should be sure to ask?

The Mensa Foundation: More than Just Scholarships

How does the Mensa Foundation support research on intelligence if it doesn’t give out money to researchers?

In the academic world, one must research, which is usually funded by grants from various places. Then one must publish the findings in respected journals. Without getting published, a researcher would be unable to get additional grant money. However, someone has to pay for the physical publication and distribution. That's one of the things The Mensa Foundation does: it provides a respected journal for researchers.

The Mensa Research Journal is considered very prestigious in educational fields, but there are costs involved in obtaining release of license for the re-publication of some of the leading articles in giftedness and intelligence from all over the world. Of the articles published that are original, there is a great deal of time devoted by highly qualified volunteers to review each article for accuracy, scientific methodology, statistical accuracy, and relevancy with the goals and objectives of both the Foundation and AML.

By doing such a bang-up job putting together the MRJ, the Mensa Foundation supports and encourages research into intelligence and similar topics. Without such publications, researchers would be unable to publish their work, their funding would dry up, and progress in the field would dwindle.