Robert Warren
Born March 24, 1932
Robert Warren, 84, died at home on Monday, October 3, 2016 from heart disease. Bob was born in Omaha, NE on March 24, 1932 to Lillian Marcus and Joseph Ellsworth Soulek. He spent his childhood in Detroit and Omaha. He moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and graduated from Belmont High School in 1950, where he was class president and a basketball and baseball standout. He continued his education at Los Angeles City College and UCLA, culminating in a Ph.D. in Political Science in 1964.
In 1953, he married Frances Elster in Los Angeles and they later divorced. Bob married Irene Belous in 1959. Bob and Irene moved to Seattle in 1960 where he was a Political Science professor at the University of Washington, and in 1971 moved to Los Angeles when he accepted a teaching position at USC. Finally, the family settled in Newark when Bob joined the College of Urban Affairs and Public Policy in 1975.
Bob found a welcome environment at the U of D. He tirelessly shepherded students from around the world through the Masters and Doctoral programs in Urban Affairs, and worked to represent the faculty in the Faculty Senate. He retired in 2014 and was awarded emeritus status. Bob remained active working with students and writing on the effects of information technology on urban socio-economic, political, and spatial dynamics. He was an aficionado of old jazz, classic movies, and critiquing the state of the world. He loved to garden and we are still enjoying this summer’s tomatoes. He will be missed by family, friends, and a large network of colleagues.
Bob is survived by his four children, Miranda Sacharin (Ken), Jeffrey Warren (Linda), Stacy Warren (Dan Israel), and Colin Warren (Virginia Parks); grandchildren, Emily Sacharin, Elad, Nathaniel, Joe and Penina Warren, Claire and Robin Israel, and Ian and Imogen Parks Warren; nieces, Allison Fanara and Jennifer Yocum; nephew, Dennis Yocum; sisters-in-law, Kathy Yocum and Bea Belous; and his beloved Borzoi companion, Lizzy. Bob was devoted to his late wife, Irene Warren, his late brother Jim Yocum, and his late aunt, Pearl Seiders.
A memorial service will be held at 1 pm on Sunday, October 9, 2016 at the Spicer-Mullikin Funeral Home, 121 W. Park Place, Newark, where a visitation will be held from 12 Noon until 1 pm. Friends and relatives are invited to a gathering honoring Bob’s memory at the family home immediately after the service.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Acoustic Neuroma Association, 600 Peachtree Parkway, Ste 108, Cumming, GA 30041 or the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, 195 Montague St., 14th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201 or to the Second Chance Animal Rescue, P.O. Box 570701, Whitestone, NY 11357.
Hun Park
Dear Dr. Warren,
I was so lucky to have you as a teacher during my study at the University of Delaware.
Your insights, sense of humor, state-of-the-art knowledge had always enlightened students, I believe.
Rest in peace.
Warmest regards,
Hun Park
Woongbee Son
Rest in Peace Prof. Warren.
You will be missed deeply.
Mark S Rosentraub
In 1972 Bob helped launch my career when I enrolled as a doctoral student at USC. Across several decades Bob and I wrote several articles and travelled together to numerous cities and countries delivering academic papers. Bob was an important part of the thinking that led to the creation of the Center for Urban Policy and the Environment at Indiana University that I led for 6+ years. Bob left me with a lifetime of memories and I always try to be the mentor to my students that he was for me. While I regret that we did not write as much together in the past 20 years as we did in the decades after I received my doctorate, I think both Bob and I realized it was time for me focus on building my own identity and chart a new or different path for my research and reputation. Bob’s legacy lives in the careers of his students and the professional lives his students have helped create for others. None of us will ever forgot his warmth, charm, love, and direction. Bob is missed every day from our lives long after we no longer work with him. Now he lives in our hearts and he is never absent from my thoughts and work. I owe a substantial portion of my success to the years I studied with and work with my mentor, Professor Robert Warren. Thank you Bob for making me the person I am today.
Mark S. Rosentraub, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Becky Wykoff
Dr. Warren was a wonderful professor and friend. His teaching, his guidance, and his commitment to social justice inspired so many students and other faculty. I graduated a number of years ago, but his classes and his meetings with me, as well as our discussions during chance encounters, were illuminating and thought-provoking. His dedication, his dry wit, and his kindness will be missed by so many. I was blessed to have him in my life.
Kathleen Doherty Turkel
Dr. Warren was my dissertation advisor. He was a wonderful teacher, advisor, mentor and friend. His guidance shaped my thinking, writing and teaching throughout my own academic career. I will be forever grateful to him. He was such a positive force in my life.
Wendy Pluscht
Having moved to Newark down the street and around the block a little over 2 years go, I can only say that I knew Dr. Warren as “Bob and Lizzy”, a pair that I enjoyed greeting as they took their stroll together almost daily. I am very saddened to know that he has passed; I would have liked to have gotten to know him. My thoughts and prayers are with the family.
Hal Kendig
Bob was the intellectual and moral leader of a group of graduate students in the early 1970s in the Urban Studies program at the University of Southern Calfornia. As my PhD thesis supervisor he made a deep impression on me from the very first graduate seminars in which he introduced us to seminal and leading edge thinking that provoked us to think for ourselves. His gentle socratic lines of inquiry, puntuated by occasional sharp correctives, have continued with me through my own work that lead me to Australia. While our paths crossed for but a few brief years, he has remained an inspiration of social purpose and intellectual rgour through my career. Sadly in the busyness of my own preoccupations I lost touch with Bob and regret that I did not ever let him know how much I appreciated him. But I expect that he knew our deep and continuing regard for him.
With deep respect and gratitude. Hal Kendig.
PS If any of my former Urban Studies colleagues at USC happen to see this belated message I would he pleased to hear from you..