One of Southwestern College’s most popular –and controversial—professors past away earlier this month.

Phil Lopez, who had been an English professor at the Chula Vista college for almost 40 years, died of a sudden heart attack on Dec. 14th, one day before his 65th birthday, according to a news alert sent out by Southwestern College last week.

His unexpected death took place on the last day of fall semester. After feeling chest pains, he was rushed to the hospital, where he died within minutes.

His passing leaves a huge void at Southwestern, where he was loved and respected.

“He was good-natured, courageous, a true defender of free speech, and a friend to many,” said in a statement Leslie Wolf Branscomb, Sr. Aide to Chula Vista City Councilmember Patricia Aguilar.

A memorial service for Lopez was held on Sunday, Dec. 23, at 3 p.m. at his Chula Vista home. All friends and members of the college community were welcome to attend.

Lopez was one of the most active members of the faculty union, and one of the strongest student supporters in a time of education cuts and class reductions.

In fact, he made headlines in late 2009 when he and three other faculty members were suspended for participating in a student protest against course cuts for the following semester. Ultimately, the professors were reinstated, and the case led to the resignation of then college superintendent Raj Chopra.

According to a long, in-depth obituary in The Sun, Southwestern College’s award-winning student newspaper, Lopez “taught English since 1974, first as an adjunct and later as a tenured professor. He was a stalwart in the faculty union, the Southwestern College Educators’ Association (SCEA). Every year for the past 27 years, he has been either the union president, vice president or secretary.”

Lopez will be remembered as a person who always put students’ education first.

“One of the great supports and forces for justice at this college is gone,” Joel Levine, dean of the School of Language and Literature where Lopez taught, told The Sun. “The best we can do is take up that baton and keep the spirit going. Phil would want us to keep fighting for what’s right, just and fair, and in the best interest of the students. That spirit will not go away.”

Governing Board Member Humberto Peraza told The Sun that “Phil is someone you thought would live forever,” he said. “You just can’t imagine him not being here.”

English Professor Francisco Bustos said that SWC will feel different now.

“The college isn’t going to be the same without him,” he told the student newspaper. “But we have to keep working hard, the way he did. Those are big shoes to fill.”

Kathleen Canney Lopez, professor of computer information systems and Lopez’s former wife, said that he was a “wonderful teacher, a wonderful man and a great father.”

“He spent his life in service to others and he never asked for anything. There was no reward he asked for. He had a moral compass. He knew what was right.”