The 1997 Alta Conference: Twenty Years in the Making

When the Tenth Biennial SCA/AFA Summer Conference on Argumentation convened on July 31, 1997, in the Wasatch Mountains at Alta, Utah, it was a conference twenty years in the making. The authors and critics polished their papers throughout the spring and early summer of 1997, the conference committee put all of the last minute touches on local arrangements, and conference director Jim Klumpp watched all the efforts come together, generated by the hard work that he and his conference committee have done over the last two years since the 1995 conference. But beyond all of these preparations stretches a history, a "long gray line" of committees, individuals, paper presenters, editors, and local arrangements committee members, who made the 1997 Alta Conference in reality the product of two decades of planning and evolution. The Alta Conference in fact had its beginning in 1976 when David Zarefsky, who then served as Chair of the SCA Forensics Division, appointed a planning committee to investigate the possibility of a summer conference in argumentation. Subsequent chairs of the division also continued to appoint committees for this purpose. These chairs included Donn W. Parson, J. Robert Cox, and David Thomas. By 1978 the University of Utah had been selected as host institution for the conference, and the American Forensic Association had joined the undertaking as a co-sponsor. At the time of the entry of the American Forensic Association into the conference planning, Gerald H. Sanders, then at the College of Wooster, was president of AFA. The reorganized planning committee then began its work in earnest at the Minneapolis convention of the SCA and AFA in the fall of 1978. After several months of planning and preparation, the first summer conference convened at Rustler Lodge in Alta, Utah, on July 26, 1979. Since 1979, the four-day format of the conference has remained, for the most part, little changed. Participants gather at Alta on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning of the conference, with a late lunch buffet being served upon arrival and with a keynote address either in the afternoon or evening on Thursday. Two days of heavily scheduled conference participation follow on Friday and Saturday, and over the years various efforts have been made to provide appropriate breaks in the afternoon and evening so that colleagues may digest the materials being presented to them and engage in scholarly interchange of ideas in a collegial fashion. There is typically very little actual conference business conducted on the Sunday on which the conference adjourns, and a concluding brunch is served at the conference hotel. While the format of the conference has not changed to any appreciable degree, and while the purpose of the conference remains fairy constant - to bring together interested scholars from around the world to share ideas about argumentation - there have been some significant changes in the scope of the Alta Conference over the years. One need only glance at the conference proceedings to learn some of the dimensions of change. While there has typically been, as befits the co-sponsorship by the American Forensic Association, a serious attempt to include a section on Argumentation and Forensics, there has been considerable variety in the other areas of interest at specific conferences. The first conference in 1979 featured three areas of interest: Argumentation and the Law, Argumentation Theory and Criticism, and Argumentation and Forensics. During the course of the conference in 1979 most of the conferees attended at least one session in each of the three areas. Conference planners hoped that this arrangement would allow for maximum choice between specialization and diversity of interests. While the practice of collegiality and the tone of the conference have continued as originally envisioned, an observer of the last several conferences might well conclude that there has been some falling away from the original intention of providing a series of programs designed to meet the general interests of all conferees attending. …