Jayna Murray Posthumously Awarded Graduate Degrees

As high school and college seniors across the country celebrate a time of transition, graduates at Johns Hopkins University recently honored a fellow classmate whose life was cut short just two months shy of her graduation.

Jayna Murray, who was where she worked March 11, was posthumously awarded dual degrees May 27 – a master’s of business administration from JHU’s Carey Business School and a master of arts in communications from the Advanced Academic Programs of JHU’s Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

Murray, 30, was working towards the degrees and had nearly completed her coursework at the time of her homicide. Her co-worker, Brittany Norwood, 28, has been charged in the crime. Norwood will face trial in October and is slated for a pre-trial hearing July 8.

Murray’s parents received the degrees for their daughter. Her brother Hugh Murray told Patch in April that Jayna had focused much of her MBA work around the Lululemon corporation, and had planned to in Vancouver before her death.

At the graduation ceremony, Murray was honored in a speech by Lloyd Minor, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Johns Hopkins.

“Jayna was an important contributor to this class academically, but she gave so much more in her spirit and her enthusiasm,” Minor said.

Minor noted that education was an “immensely important” part of Murray’s life. She was fond of sharing her love of learning with others, including when she read to her young nephews.

“Something we can celebrate today is the certain knowledge that Jayna’s life and achievement will always have a positive influence on her nephews,” Minor said.

A video of the graduation ceremony is available at JHU’s website. The speech honoring Murray begins at the 57-minute mark.