Photo: Pittsburgh Tribune Review

John Edward Murray, Jr., a 1958 alumnus of the Columbus School of Law, died of a heart attack on Feb. 11 in Pittsburgh, PA, at the age of 82.
Murray was a chancellor and a professor of law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and also served two other law schools as dean: the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and the Villanova University School of Law. Murray was also a former president of Duquesne University from 1988 through 2001. He was widely regarded as a prominent educator who helped to change the face of Duquesne University and Allegheny County without losing his dedication to teaching his students. By all accounts, Duquesne was a struggling university with declining enrollment and a multimillion-dollar negative fund balance when Murray, by that time a University Distinguished Service Professor at Pitt, was recruited to become the school's first lay president. As a law professor, Murray won numerous teaching awards and wrote 26 books. He won the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Conference of Professors of Contract Law. Murray, known for waking every morning at 5 a.m. to write, continued to teach until the day he died. He is survived by his wife, Marjorie; four children; and six grandchildren.