Fifty years ago, the Ileitis and Colitis Foundation approached Boston University Professor Walter Lubars to create a series of advertisements as a freelance assignment. Lubars saw the request as a way to help a good cause – but also an opportunity for four students, eager for a new challenge.

Lubars turned the project into the first assignment for AdLab, the country’s first student-run advertising agency. With colleague Bob Montgomery, Lubars guided AdLab to help make BU’s College of Communication one of the top colleges for aspiring advertising executives, strategists, writers and creatives.

Lubars, who passed away last week, made a lasting mark on the college and the lives of his students and colleagues.

“Walter was the mensch of mensches,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a professor emeritus of advertising at COM who worked closely with Lubars. “His sense of humor, his kindness and his intelligence graced everyone who knew him. He was an inspiration to a generation of BU advertising students.”

Lubars was tapped to serve as interim dean of the college in 1991. To hear the announcement, COM faculty had gathered in Room 106, and “with a bit of drama,” Berkovitz said, University President John R. Silber announced the news to loud applause. “In his droll style, Walter says ‘I’m not sure you are applauding because it is me, or because it isn’t you.’ That’s Walter for you,” Berkovitz said.

Margaret Wallace, now an associate professor of the practice, media innovation, worked as an administrator when Lubars served as a department chair.

“He was also one of the kindest and most genuine individuals I’ve had the privilege of knowing,” Wallace said. “Walter had a fantastic sense of humor and was also a gifted storyteller. I can fondly remember many hours spent in his company, listening to his compelling and often very funny stories.”

David Lubars, one of Walter’s sons who later served as chief creative officer at BBDO Worldwide, said in an interview last year that he could see his father had started something special in AdLab.

“You learn pressure and deadlines and having to go back and do it all over again,” David Lubars said of AdLab in COM/365, a college publication for alumni. “So, when you start at an agency, you already understand the frantic and sometimes chaotic nature of the business. It’s experience that is so valuable.”

Lubars was born in New York City, and he studied at the City College of New York and, for his graduate studies, Rutgers University. He served in the Army Signal Corps during the Korean War, and later wrote for notable advertising and public relations agencies, including Burson-Marsteller and J. Walter Thompson.

He wrote novels, including “The Monterey Marauders” and “Chasing the Wind”, as well as instructional texts, such as “Guidelines for Effective Writing: Qualities and Formats.”

Upon his retirement, COM established the Walter Lubars Prize in Advertising, and his colleagues shared their appreciation in a video reel.