The faculty, students and alumni of the NIU history department are reeling from the shock of Dr. Marvin Rosen’s suicide.

The popular associate professor and undergraduate adviser retired in May.

Rosen was discovered Thursday night by two of his closest friends, Helen Shirley, widow of the late history department chair Jim Shirley and Dan Reynolds, associate dean and professor at the College of Law, after Rosen had failed to respond to several messages from Shirley.

Many people involved with the department were aware that Rosen had been depressed about retiring for several months, but his death nevertheless was jarring.

George Spencer, history department chairman, said that a mutual friend told him that Rosen seemed to be improving earlier in the week.

“It made my day,” Spencer said. “I thought he was on the mend.”

Both students and professors remember Rosen as being a funny speaker and an expert on English history who was a confirmed Marxist. Many of his students have stories of being over to his house or having him over to theirs.

“(Dr. Rosen) was just such a good buddy and part of my team,” Spencer said. “He was the first person I appointed to the post of undergraduate adviser, a post which he held for a decade. He did a wonderful job. He was one of the most popular instructors we ever had.”

History alumni consistently have named Rosen as their favorite professor in surveys conducted by the department.

“One of the things that impressed me when I was chair of the department was how many alumni and history majors said they became history majors because they took one of Marvin Rosen’s classes,” said Elaine Spencer, who served as history department chair from 1995 to 1999.

Jeanine Clark, one of his former teaching assistants, wrote, “I loved being his T.A. and he was by far the only true mentor I have had at NIU.”

Rosen was one of the best, most dedicated teachers associate history professor Jim Schmidt ever met.

“He thought he was teaching people something for their whole lives,” Schmidt said.

After Rosen announced his retirement, he received a huge stack of letters containing phrases from students like, “You changed my life” and “You set me on the right path,” Reynolds said.

“He constructed a very beautiful life as a teacher first, last and always,” Reynolds said. “I think he missed that life very, very much.”

Another of his former students, Denise Thompson, wrote,”The man was a living tribute to new ideas and different opinions. Going to his class was a pleasure every day. It is a shame that he could not have stayed at NIU until he was 95! Now I miss him almost unbearably because I know that future students will be unable to witness his energetic and informative way of teaching. And that is the biggest loss that I have known in a long time.”

Rosen, who was born in 1936, spent much of his life in Southern California, had earned his B.A. from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1956, his M.A. from UCLA in 1958 and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1962. He was recruited to teach at NIU by Dr. Jim Shirley, an expert on China who also had earned his doctorate at Berkeley. Spencer and his wife, Dr. Elaine Spencer, received their doctorates at Berkeley and were recruited by Shirley, too, so for a while, the four of them formed the department’s “Berkeley mafia,” Spencer joked.

“He gave the most eloquent eulogy for Jim Shirley,” Spencer said. “I had a feeling he should be the last speaker and he had us all in tears.”

Rosen is survived by his 96-year-old mother, Faye Rosen, and several other relatives in California. His body has been cremated for shipment back to California. A memorial service will be held for him, possibly in December, or, more likely, at some point during the Spring semester, according to Spencer and Reynolds.