Albert Mavrinac, 83; professor inspired students for 3 decades

Students of Albert Mavrinac called him inspiring. Doris Kearns Goodwin , one of his students at Colby College, noted his constant quest for truth. And though a college professor for 30 years, he also loved to speak about politics to elementary school classes.

Mr. Mavrinac, 83, died of respiratory failure Thursday at Thayer Hospital in Waterville, Maine.

Born in Pittsburgh the son of immigrants, Mr. Mavrinac worked in steel mills before earning a bachelor's degree in government at the University of Pittsburgh. He joined the Army in 1942, and fought in the south of France and Germany. He received numerous awards for his service, and stayed in Germany after the Nazis were defeated to work for the postwar allied government.

When he returned to the United States, he earned his master's degree in political science at the University of Pittsburgh. He went on to study at Columbia University, the Higher Institute of Philosophy at the University of Louvain, Belgium, and as a Carnegie Fellow in Law and Political Science at Harvard Law School. He earned his doctorate in comparative politics from Harvard University in 1995.

Mr. Mavrinac spent more than 30 years at Colby College, where he was chairman of the government department from 1958 to 1982. Jan Hogendorn , who taught economics at Colby and was close to Mr. Mavrinac, credited him with essentially creating the political science program at Colby.

``He really founded quite an enterprise," Hogendorn said. He said Mr. Mavrinac also made a strong impression on his students.

``Of all the teachers I ever had, he was by far the best," Goodwin said in a phone interview last night. ``He had this magical way of teaching that made us feel that if we could truly understand what he was saying -- he was always a step beyond us -- you would understand truth and justice."

Goodwin said she had fond memories of being invited over to Mr. Mavrinac's house for dinner, and being in awe of his intellect.

His lectures were ``very animated," she said, and ``full of life and vitality," as he would parade about the room while offering up ideas so complex that students would often gather in one another's dorm rooms to decipher their meaning.

When she told him many years later that he was viewed as a brilliant scholar, ``He laughing said `Did you ever think maybe it was just that I was obscure?' " she recalled.

``He was the prototypical spacey academic," Sarah of Singapore said of her father. Her father, she said, loved to read The New York Times and would walk to Joe's Smoke Shop every day to buy it.

The family was raised mainly in Waterville, but spent several years in exotic locales. ``We had this incredible childhood," she said. ``Every five or six years we would go off to explore some amazing place."

Mr. Mavrinac was a government adviser in Cairo from 1965 to 1967, and advised the South Vietnamese government in the early 1970s. He also worked as an adviser in Togo, Jordan, and for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Mr. Mavrinac was also active in local and domestic politics. He was chairman of the Waterville Democratic Party Committee and senior legislative assistant to Ken Curtis when he was governor of Maine. He was also a foreign policy adviser to Senator Edmund Muskie in his 1968 vice presidential campaign.

But his daughter said his greatest passion was his teaching. ``Every year for him in the classroom was a new year," she said. She said he never used the same notes or the same information, but constantly looked for new ways of teaching. ``He brought that energy to it," she said.

She said he brought that same energy to being a father.

``He loved to help us with our Latin homework," she said, adding that he was optimistic about whatever his children chose to do.

``If we had chosen to be basket weavers, he would be so excited for us," she said. ``He would get into the arts and spirit of basketweaving and start researching the best basketweaving schools. And I think that was the way he treated virtually everything."

In addition to his daughter, Mr. Mavrinac leaves his wife, Marilyn Sweeney Mavrinac ; four children, Georgia of Whitefish Bay, Wis., Susan of Wakefield, Mass., Emily Hayden of Wilmette, Ill., and Anthony of Northville, Mich.; brothers Harry of Pittsburgh and Frank Marvin of Arlington, Va.; and eight grandchildren.

A funeral Mass will be held at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow in Lorimer Chapel at Colby College, with a reception afterward on the Colby campus.

Globe correspondent Emma Stickgold contributed to this obituary.