Boston University (B.U.) Professor of Political Science Emeritus Murray B. Levin '48, a member of the Quincy House Senior Common Room and a scholar-activist, died last Wednesday of heart problems. He was 72.

Colleagues and former students remembered Levin for a lifetime of urging his students to challenge authority.

Joseph Boskin, a professor of American social history at B.U., said his colleague's devotion to teaching was truly extraordinary.

"He embraced his students, and brought them into his world," he said.

Eric Simon, a former student and close friend, said Levin wanted his students to connect their political views with their personal lives, reminding his class of simple truths like, "it's good to do good things for people."

Levin, who urged his students to stand up for what they believed, practiced what he preached as a member of the so-called "B.U. Five," a group of tenured professors who taught classes outside to protest the administration failure to grant secretaries the right to unionize.

Emphatically pro-labor and usually siding with the disenfranchised, Levin maintained throughout his career that the United States had become prosperous by exploiting women, minorities and the poor.

Still, his classes always explored both sides of an issue. He wanted to challenge and exchange ideas, and even students who disagreed with his political beliefs found his classes compelling.