Frances Moore Lappe	Douglas J. Amy	Preston Smith

"Making Democracy Work,” the second of four Weissman Center fall events to focus on the American democracy, will be held Wednesday, October 18, at 7:30 pm in Gamble Auditorium. Moderated by Preston Smith, associate professor of politics and chair of African American and African studies at Mount Holyoke, the panel discussion will feature Douglas J. Amy, MHC professor of politics; Frances Moore Lappé, cofounder of the Center for Living Democracy and visiting researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Micah L. Sifry, senior analyst with Public Campaign. Panelists will discuss such issues as low voter turnout and address topics ranging from electoral system reform and third parties to grassroots social change.

Said Karen Remmler, codirector of the Weissman Center, “At the first panel discussion, ‘Money in Politics,’ ACLU director Ira Glasser noted that ‘a two-party system is not that different from a one-party system.’ At the first presidential debate, protesters argued for participation from third-party candidates to no avail. The second panel will give us a chance to further consider these issues.”

THE PANEL

Douglas J. Amy, MHC associate professor of politics, is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the electoral system of proportional representation. He is the author of Real Choices, New Voices: The Case for Proportional Representation Elections in the United States, and his most recent book, Behind the Ballot Box: A Citizen’s Guide to Voting Systems, was published this month.

Frances Moore Lappé, cofounder of the Center for Living Democracy and visiting lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is well known for her groundbreaking work Diet for a Small Planet. The author of fifteen books, Lappé has had articles published in the New York Times, Tikkun, and Harper’s. Her most recent book focuses on the success stories and practical tools of citizen problem solving.

Micah L. Sifry, senior analyst with Public Campaign, a nonpartisan organization promoting comprehensive campaign finance reform, is writing a book on the prospects of America’s leading third parties. The book will be published next year. A recent Individual Project Fellow of the Open Society Institute, he has contributed articles to many magazines, including The American Prospect, Tikkun, and The Nation, where he was an editor for many years.

ABOUT OVERNIGHT FLOAT

Life at a small women’s college in New England suggests many things: a leafy campus resplendent in fall foliage, young women gathering over steaming cups of coffee to discuss the news of the day, the buzz of excitement at the beginning of a new semester, and an environment where female leadership is the rule rather than the exception. Good, peaceful things. At least, that’s what Rosemary Stubbs thinks when she agrees to join a women’s college as the school chaplain. That’s what she thinks before her friend’s body is found floating in the new Olympic-sized swimming pool.

In Overnight Float (W.W. Norton; September 2000), the authors present a captivating heroine and the first volume in a new mystery series. A widow at thirty-five, challenged but unsatisfied by a career in corporate finance, Rosemary Stubbs shifts gears and finds solace at Yale’s divinity school. After graduation, still unsure of her vocation, she accepts a job as chaplain of Sanderson College, a liberal arts institution for women in Vermont. Warming to life in academia, Rosemary devotes herself to the young scholars who come to her for guidance and counsel while at the same time renewing her study of ancient Christian mystics. She is encouraged and befriended by Blanche Warner, Sanderson’s affable, efficient treasurer. When her friend is found murdered shortly after the school year begins, Rosemary learns that evil seldom adheres to campus codes of conduct.

As the scandal simmers and fingers point, evidence seems to implicate Blanche’s paramour, a brilliant yet volatile professor of botany. Unable to believe this explanation of events, Rosemary starts her own investigation, looking into allegations of fiscal impropriety at the highest levels of the college administration. What begins for Rosemary with an inquiry into the school’s finances soon leads her directly into the path of her friend’s killer.

Caught up in the rancorous politics between staff members at Sanderson, Rosemary is buoyed by the aid of sympathetic companions. There’s Kevin Oxley, a classics professor whose interest in the chaplain is far from strictly spiritual, Raphael Ramirez, the local police investigator, whose love of opera is surpassed only by his passion for justice, and many students at Sanderson whose youthful enthusiasm is a constant source of inspiration for Rosemary.

Throughout Overnight Float, the authors convey the splendor of the western New England landscape and the lively, intimate atmosphere of a small college. Ominous and transcendent in turn, it is the perfect setting for this fast-paced, intelligent yarn.

PHOTOS OF DOUGLAS J. AMY AND PRESTON SMITH BY NANCY PALMIERI