Leaders in Funeral Education

The outlook for careers in funeral service is good … like open-casket good.

The number of funeral service workers is slated to grow 3% over the next decade. Enrollments at accredited mortuary programs over the past few years have increased nearly 25%. Placement rates for recent graduates sit around 90%.

Leading generations of future funeral home workers through their education and preparation for this industry are Leili ’04 and Brian ’02 McMurrough. Together they own and operate a funeral home, which has been in Brian’s family for three generations, and Worsham College of Mortuary Science, one of the nation’s oldest mortuary schools, dating back to 1911.

Their success as a couple, business partners, and parents all goes back to a chance meeting at Lehigh when their roommates briefly dated.

He was a mechanical engineering major, laser focused on doing well and future success. She was a political science and philosophy double major, bent on a career in law.

Their first Valentine’s Day had him take her out for a cheesesteak. He didn’t have time for anything more romantic because his class schedule the next day demanded too much.

A year later, they shared another small moment of connection — a pint of ice cream with two spoons.

After eight years of dating, 14 years of marriage, and two daughters, they are still thriving.

The outcomes they dreamed about at Lehigh came to fruition. Brian landed a job at General Motors, worked there for a decade, and earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Purdue. Leili graduated with a law degree from Syracuse University, passed the bar exam,  and worked for three years in the district attorney’s office.

That’s when Brian got the news that his dad was planning to retire from the family business: Libertyville Funeral Home.

Brian and Leili then took an unconventional path, deciding to enroll at the Simmons Institute of Funeral Service in Syracuse. He took classes on weekends while she balanced her law career and mortuary degrees simultaneously. Soon she was teaching mortuary law at Simmons while Brian also held an apprenticeship at a local funeral home.

They passed their mortuary board exams and headed off to Illinois to join the family business. They lived upstairs with their young family while helping operate the funeral parlor on the first floor.

Together they handled funeral duties while Leili began to teach part time 20 miles down the road at Worsham College. Slowly she began to take on more administrative tasks at the college. When the owners sought to retire, Leili and Brian took ownership of the college where she began to serve as program director in 2016.

Her goal was to help modernize the institution and education it offered. She moved courses online and watched enrollment triple. The college kept earning national recognition, standing out among the 58 accredited mortuary programs in the United States. Leili added a clinical laboratory on site and a crematory. 

Today, 10% of all mortuary program students in the country study at Worsham.

It speaks to the approach Brian and Leili are taking to attract new recruits to a business that isn’t easy, like being on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that battles perceptions of the work being morbid.  

Nothing is further from the truth.

The funeral industry is navigating big shifts. No longer a somber remembrance, a funeral is now a personalized celebration of life. Most students entering the business are first-generation college students, many more of whom are women and students of color. They need to master a range of skills, from mortuary science to running a small business, and possess a personality for sales and an ability to build relationships with customers and the community.

“We have to instruct students at the college in how to guide a family’s vision and honor the wishes of their loved one,” says Leili. “We build their hard skills in science and their soft skills in working with people.”

It’s the kind of skills Brian and Leili picked up at Lehigh — doing several things well, balancing full plates, seizing opportunities, leveraging an entrepreneurial spirit, analyzing a situation, solving problems, and staying deeply rooted to what matters.

These traits made Leili’s grandfather love Lehigh. While he didn’t attend the university, his best friend did. Her grandfather was so proud when she was accepted and graduated.

“When he passed, our family honored his wishes, so he was buried in a Lehigh sweatshirt,” she says. “He knew it was a place where wonderful things happen — learning, doing, and connecting with others. And he was exactly right.”

Leili is not slowing down. While Brian manages the calls at the funeral home, she is hitting the road, speaking internationally and across the country through her work with the National Funeral Directors Association while pursuing a Ph.D. in education leadership at Johns Hopkins.

They know when it comes to funerals and training the next generation of funeral director leaders, there is always more they can undertake.