As a pre-med student at DePauw University in Indiana, Arthur Paul Doederlein once kept lab notes on paper towels.
Students were required to keep notes in a leather-bound notebook, but Mr. Doederlein didn't want to risk staining the notebook's pristine white pages with chemicals in the lab. So instead he wrote on paper towels and transcribed those notes to a notebook each night.
His frustrated chemistry professor tore up the paper towels after a days-long experiment, but Mr. Doederlein still got an A in the class. Mr. Doederlein later shifted his major to communications and went on to teach at Northern Illinois University for 40 years, never deviating from his free-thinking, if sometimes offbeat, ways.
"He was definitely a character," said his daughter, Catherine Warrick Doederlein. "Some of his colleagues often referred to him as being very eccentric."
Mr. Doederlein died Friday, Aug. 24, at Kishwaukee Community Hospital after a suffering a heart attack on his 70th birthday three days earlier, his daughter said.
After getting his master's and doctoral degrees from Northwestern University, Mr. Doederlein taught briefly at Northwestern before transferring to NIU in 1969. He was the undergraduate studies director in the Department of Communication for 30 years, until his retirement in 2010.
Mr. Doederlein's wife, who was his high school sweetheart, also started at NIU in 1969. Sue Warrick Doederlein is now associate dean for undergraduate affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Mr. Doederlein won the university's Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1994. As a student adviser, he was available at all hours and on the weekends.
Carol Owens played basketball at NIU from 1985 to 1990, but in November of her sophomore year she suffered a knee injury. She was out for the season and lacked direction and motivation when she met with Mr. Doederlein.
"He just came at the right time," Owens said. "I was at that crossroads where everything that I really cared about was gone. He really helped me get out of my funk."
Mr. Doederlein was instrumental in helping Owens get an internship at a Peoria television station after she graduated. She went on to play professional basketball overseas and always kept in touch with her college counselor, sometimes staying at his home.
"I used to call him my other dad," said Owens, a former NIU women's basketball coach.
Mr. Doederlein suffered from thyroid cancer in his 20s and was diagnosed with diabetes in the 1990s, leading to the loss of his left leg and part of his right foot. In his communications courses, including one his daughter took, he would ask students if they were prepared to die that day.
"Most would cringe at such an idea," Mr. Doederlein wrote in an essay after winning the NIU teaching award. "I explain that they should drop the class. Such tactics usually provoke introspection. Comments from former students include references to epiphanies in my classes and (the) willingness to take risks in their lives because death is there for us all."
Mr. Doederlein is also survived by a son, Arthur Allen Doederlein.
At Mr. Doederlein's request, no service is planned.
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