Jack "Doc" Warfield, professor of communication at Wayne State University, believed students should learn about broadcasting in the real world as well as the classroom. He died of pancreatic cancer Monday, Jan. 18, in his Southfield home at age 83.

Ed Pappas, interim chair of communication, says the radio and television broadcasting professor liked Wayne State to have partnerships with the local media outlets.

"He would invite people from the television stations to address his students and give them a sense for what that world really is like," Pappas recalls.

Homework for Professor Warfield's students was just as likely to include watching the six o'clock news as it was reading textbooks and reviewing lecture notes.

"He didn't believe in the ivory tower of education," Pappas says. "He had a passion about being relevant, so that most of what he was teaching was not five or six years behind the times."

Professor Warfield was with Wayne State from 1959 to 1983 where he helped establish the school's reputation for excellence in radio and television studies.

He also taught at several other colleges including the University of Arkansas, Mary Washington College and the University of West Virginia.

During World War II he set up communication networks in the South Pacific and staged shows for Bob Hope, Jack Benny and Dinah Shore.

The professor worked as a director in television at KTLA in Los Angeles and also acted in movies. One of the highlights of his career, he once said, was working in Thailand as a Fulbright Fellow. He spent two years there and called it "a dream come true."

Professor Warfield received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin, a master's degree from the University of Minnesota and a doctoral degree from the University of Utah.

He is survived by his wife of 30 years, Kathy MacLean Warfield; daughters Marjorie Ann Gill and Kalthleen Lois Yagich; a son Louis Marshall III; and two stepsons, John Hammond and Calvin MacLean.

A memorial service was held Jan. 23-which would have been his 84th birthday. It was an upbeat event he planned himself.

Memorials may be made to Hospice of Michigan, 16250 Northland Drive, Suite 212, Southfield, Mich. 48075-5200 or the American Cancer Society 29359 Southfield, Suite 110, Southfield, Mich. 48076.