Lauren C. Bell

Lauren C. Bell is the inaugural James L. Miller Professor of Political Science at Randolph-Macon College, in Ashland, Virginia, where she currently serves as Associate Provost and Dean of Academic Affairs.

Dr. Bell holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Wooster (Ohio) and Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center at The University of Oklahoma. She is a former American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow (1997-98) on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a former United States Supreme Court fellow (2006-07) at the United States Sentencing Commission in Washington, DC.

Dr. Bell is the author of Transatlantic Majoritarianism: How Migration, Murder, and Modernity Transformed Nineteenth Century Legislatures (forthcoming in 2025 from Clemson University Press), Filibustering in the U.S. Senate (Cambria Press, 2011), Warring Factions: Interest Groups, Money, and the New Politics of Senate Confirmation (The Ohio State University Press, 2002) and The U.S. Congress, A Simulation for Students (Cengage, 2nd ed. 2022) as well as co-author of Slingshot: The Defeat of Eric Cantor (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2015) and Perspectives on Political Communication: A Case Approach (Allyn & Bacon, 2008), and co-editor of Civic Pedagogies: Teaching Civic Engagement in an Era of Divisive Politics (Palgrave McMillan, 2024). In addition, her scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including The Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, The Journal of Legislative Studies, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Social Science Quarterly, Judicature, Political Studies Review, and the Journal of the Society for American Music. 

Dr. Bell actively promotes civic engagement and civic education through her work as a member of the Board of Advisors for the national Center for Civic Education (Calabasas, California) and as a member of the Virginia Civics Council at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture (Richmond, Virginia). Since 2022, she has served as co-chair of the American Political Science Association's Civic Engagement organized section and she previously served as member of the American Bar Association's Public Education Advisory Commission. She is a frequent lecturer for non-partisan civic organizations; in October 2023 the Hanover County (Virginia) Rotary Club recognized her as a Paul Harris Fellow "in appreciation of tangible and significant assistance given for the furtherance of better understanding and friendly relations among peoples of the world."

Dr. Bell currently serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Political Science and previously served on the editorial board of Justice System Journal. She also serves as a member of the American Political Science Association's Congressional Fellowship Advisory Committee.

Dr. Bell joined the faculty at Randolph-Macon in Fall 1999 and served as Associate Dean of the College from Fall 2007 until Spring 2014 and as Dean of Academic Affairs from Fall 2014 until Spring 2022. In Fall 2015, she was a short-term visiting scholar on the Faculty of Law at Keio University in Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Bell is a three-time winner of the College’s Thomas Branch Award for Excellence in Teaching (2002, 2004, 2019), and in 2017 was recognized as one of ten national Outstanding First-Year Advocates by the National Resource Center on the First Year Experience and Students in Transition. In 2023, Dr. Bell was awarded the Samuel Nelson Gray Distinguished Professor Award, the highest honor Randolph-Macon College bestows upon its faculty members.