The Place of the Regional Associations in the MLA

Abstract

The MLA has approximately 30,000 members, of which fewer than 20 percent (only some 5,000) also belong to one of the regional associations. The six regional associations have a combined membership of approximately 10,000, so it follows that the other 5,000 regional members (roughly 50 percent) do not belong to the national MLA. Now, these are very interesting figures; the only problem is that I am not at all sure, even with a heavy dose of "roughlys" and "approximatelys," that they are accurate enough to be useful in any way. I didn't exactly make them up, but I came pretty close to doing just that. To atone for this sin of creativity I have another set of figures which I assure you are extremely accurate. The current PMLA Directory Issue reveals that from the eight states considered by the MLA to be in the Rocky Mountain Region (which should not be confused with the Rocky Mountain MLA) there are 952 MLA members. The current RMMLA Directory lists 383 members as belonging to the Regional, of which 279 come from these same eight states-Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. I do not know how many of the 279 are also MLA members, but I do know, because I counted them, that 196 (51.2 percent) of the total number of 383 listed as members of RMMLA are also listed as MLA members in the current PMLA Directory. If half of the 279 eight-state RMMLA members are also MLA members, then we have about 140 of the 952 (or 14.7 percent) as double members. These figures are so accurate as to turn one's stomach, but unfortunately they too have to be qualified because the MLA statistics were "peak figures" taken last April before membership drops, whereas the RMMLA figures are presumably taken this fall after drops for non-renewal. Moreover, the MLA has already added well over 1,000 new members since the time its September Directory went to press. Some of these no doubt come from the area in question, and I am sure new members have also been added to the RMMLA list. One tends to despair; we will never know for sure. If, however, it is true, as it is with the RMMLA, that 50 percent of a regional group belongs to the national group (and I think it probably works out on an average), and if there really are 10,000 regional members, then that means 5,000 belong to both MLA and a regional. Well, let us not worry about it; the number of double members is possibly 5,000-maybe it's 4,000, maybe it's 6,000-but let's say 5,000. Moreover, let us not worry at this time about the other 25,000 (or 83 percent) of MLA members who have not joined a regional; and by all means let us not even