L. Sandy Maisel is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Government, past chair of the Department of Government (for 20 years), and founding director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby College, where he has taught since 1971. He is the author or editor of more than twenty books (several in multiple editions) including "American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction" and "Evaluating Campaign Quality: Can the Electoral Process Be Improved?" 

"From Obscurity to Oblivion: Running in the Congressional Primary" chronicled Maisel’s unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for Congress from Maine. His published articles have appeared in many political science journals and anthologies, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and the Legislative Studies Quarterly. Maisel has served as president of the New England Political Science Association, twice a member of the Council of the American Political Science Association, and chair of the APSA’s research sections that focus on Political Organizations and Parties and on Legislative Studies. He has twice been awarded Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer grants (to The Philippines in 1998 and to Brazil in 2012, has been a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and has served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Melbourne and Monash University in Australia, at Harvard University, and at Stanford University. 

Maisel and his wife, Patrice Franko, who is the Grossman Professor of Economics and professor of global studies at Colby, live in Rome, ME.