WASHINGTON — The University of Maryland has conferred a posthumous, honorary degree on Lt. Richard Collins, the Bowie State University student who was stabbed to death on the College Park campus in May.
University of Maryland President Wallace Loh, joined by Bowie State University President Aminta Hawkins Breaux, presented Collins’ parents, Richard and Dawn Collins, the honorary bachelor’s degree in Humane Letters on Tuesday night at the commencement honoring 2017 winter graduates.
“The pain of this loss does not abate,” Loh said in his remarks. “This tragedy has united us in grief and in acts of healing.”
Police said Collins, a newly commissioned Army officer, was just days from graduating at Bowie State when he was stabbed to death by a former white Maryland student in a racially-motivated hate crime.
“This is a fitting memorial to a young man whose life and death have touched our community so deeply,” Loh said.
