The process by which the American public elects its leaders will be put under the microscope by two prominent political analysts speaking at GVSU on April 5.
Election Reform: Possibilities, Probabilities and Reality features Richard Norton Smith, director of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation and distinguished professor of U.S. Presidential History at GVSU, and former state Senator Bill Ballenger, now publisher of Inside Michigan Politics and host of a political radio show.
The presentation is the inaugural event in the new William C. Baum Lecture Series at Grand Valley. It begins at 8 p.m. in the Cook-DeWitt Center on GVSU's Allendale campus. It is open to the public free of charge.
Smith and Ballenger will focus their political expertise on election reform, covering such topics as finance, machinery and counting, and the Electoral College. Their lectures will be followed by a question and answer period.
Smith, a past political speechwriter and Washington Post writer, is best known as a historian and critically-acclaimed biographer of high-profile people including past presidents and Col. Robert R. McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. He served on the staff at four presidential libraries prior to becoming director of the Gerald R. Ford Museum and Library in 1996. Smith is a frequent guest on C-Span as well as a commentator on PBS history specials and a regular contributor to publications on the American presidency. He was appointed distinguished professor at GVSU in 2000.
Ballenger's political career includes former posts as state senator and representative, state racing commissioner, and as director of the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulation. A Michigan native, Ballenger is well known in the state as editor and publisher of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics and for his political talk show on WKAR Radio in East Lansing.
The William C. Baum Series is supported through an endowment fund recently established by friends, colleagues and former students of William Baum, political science professor at Grand Valley for the past 37 years. The series is a living tribute to Baum, who continues to teach and inspire students, and will fund annual events alternating between Baum's two passions: politics and music.
