December 07, 2023

A historic, record-breaking capital campaign, compelling faculty-student research, a world-renowned classical musician performed on campus and much more — it’s been another memory-making year at Susquehanna University. Here are some of our favorite stories from 2023.   

Campaign exceeds goal by $20 million

Susquehanna University celebrated the culmination of the most ambitious capital campaign in its 165-year history by raising over $185 million to support student scholarships, capital improvements and Susquehanna’s endowment.

The Give Rise campaign shone a spotlight on the enviable loyalty and engagement Susquehanna enjoys with its supportive base of alumni, parents, faculty, staff and friends who helped to realize:

• $22.3 million to support 21 major capital improvement projects, many of which established newly named spaces on campus.
• $56.3 million in gifts creating 265 new funds to fortify support for students and augment resources for programmatic and faculty development.
• $106.4 million in gifts and estate commitments to Susquehanna’s endowment to bolster the university’s financial foundation.   

Alumni earn prestigious honors

Judge Abigail Myers ’01 LeGrowSusquehanna has a successful alumni family who makes their alma mater proud in the myriad ways they are using their degrees.

Judge Abigail Myers ’01 LeGrow was confirmed as a Delaware Supreme Court justice by the State Senate, after having been nominated by Gov. John Carney to fill a vacancy on the bench. LeGrow had served on the state’s Superior Court since 2016.

Devon Taylor ’04 was part of the Gimlet Media team that was honored with a Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award for audio broadcasting for the podcast Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s, which tells the story of the trauma indigenous children faced at St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Canada. Taylor is currently a senior editor at The New York Times.

Madelyn Correllus ’22 was awarded the esteemed Fulbright U.S. Student Program award from the U.S. Department of State to pursue her master’s degree in sociology at the University of Sheffield in England.  

Itzhak Perlman wows in Weber

Susquehanna University hosted internationally renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman, with pianist Rohan De Silva, for a magical performance in Weber Chapel Auditorium.

The evening’s program was made possible by the Stella Freeman Weis Cultural Endowment. Perlman awed concertgoers with pieces by Beethoven, Brahms, Leclair, Schumann and others, as well as the Theme from Schindler’s List by John Williams.   

Stein fellows intern across three continents

Over the summer of 2023, 12 Susquehanna students interned with companies around the globe thanks to the late Eric Stein ’69, who created the Eric Stein Fund for International Experience. While living and working abroad, Stein came to appreciate the importance of global business competency and wanted to make sure Susquehanna students had the opportunity to experience all the international business world has to offer.

Discover the diverse professional and intercultural journeys our students experienced in Australia, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and Vietnam.   

LGBTQ+ Resource Center offers support

In September, Susquehanna dedicated the LGBTQ+ Resource Center as an on-campus space where queer students will feel supported and empowered.

Located in the Scholars House and adjacent to the Charles B. Degenstein Campus Center, the center’s creation was due in part to growing demand among LGBTQ+-identifying students. The center offers LGBTQ+ literature and special programming, including mindfulness sessions.

In addition to opening the resource center, Susquehanna also created specialty housing for LGBTQ+ students this year.  

Sustainability starts with SU

Sustainability isn’t just a buzz word at Susquehanna, and in 2023, the university embarked on two interesting projects to address energy and stream conservation.

With support and funding from Susquehanna’s Student Government Association and the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Driving PA Forward program, the university installed four publicly accessible Level 2 electric vehicle chargers on campus.

In the first project of its kind in Pennsylvania, faculty and students constructed beaver dams for stream maintenance at the Center for Environmental Education and Research. The manmade beaver dams are used to slow water flow and trap sediment with the hope that they will help to prevent erosion and the flow of sediment downstream to the Susquehanna River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay.

The sustainability walk doesn’t end at SU’s gates. Gannon Keller ’15 and Krystal Duke ’14 Keller founded the Kinder Cloth Diaper Company after welcoming their first child. The couple’s differing academic backgrounds — Krystal’s in graphic design and Gannon’s in business — have complemented each other in their eco-friendly business venture.   

Research spans the sciences and humanities

Susquehanna has a long tradition of undergraduate research that not only contributes knowledge to the scientific and academic communities, but also provides students with valuable opportunities to participate in this research, laying the groundwork for them to enter the workforce or graduate school, often as published authors.

As a geophysicist, Ahmed Lachhab, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, never imagined he would apply the same tools he uses to study lakes in Pennsylvania to help archeologists in Morocco. But that is exactly what he did. Lachhab used ground-penetrating radar to help archeologists preserve ancient Roman mosaics at Volubilis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northwestern Morocco.

Back in Pennsylvania, Jennifer Elick, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, set out to determine how fish weirs contributed to the formation of islands within the Susquehanna River. Elick focused her attention on an unnamed island near Beach Haven, Pennsylvania, in Luzerne County, determining that a large percentage of the soil composition — anthracite coal and waste produced from coal-burning — was likely swept downstream and deposited within the walls of a fish weir as a result of 1972’s Hurricane Agnes flood.

Read on to learn more about how our students contributed to other research from the past year:

• Described a new method of estimating the thermal emissions of exoplanets, or planets outside the solar system, from Jennifer Carter, assistant professor of physics.
• Explored the criminal infrastructure that emerged with the advent of cars — this time looking into the role jitney busses and their drivers played in rum running, from Ed Slavishak, professor of history.
• Used campus ginkgo leaves and other natural ingredients, such as rosemary and eucalyptus, to attempt to generate reactive oxygen in SU’s laser lab, from Swarna Basu, chair and professor of chemistry.
• Studied art activist practices in Philadelphia and New York City within the last decade, from Isabella Galliera, assistant professor of art history.   

New programs offered in business, social and natural sciences

Susquehanna introduced several to Susquehanna.

The 2023–24 academic year brought new majors in criminal justice, entrepreneurship & corporate innovation, and real estate, as well as a Master of Business Administration program with the University of Nicosia, Cyprus, and a Doctor of Pharmacy program with Duquesne and Temple universities. Read about them all here.   

Athletics lands conference, coaching honors

Approximately one-third of Susquehanna’s students participate on at least one of the university’s 23 NCAA DIII athletics teams. In 2023, several of those teams brought home Landmark conference championships, including baseball, football, men’s indoor and outdoor track and field, women’s indoor and outdoor track and field, and field hockey.

Head Coach Tom Perkovich was honored by the Maxwell Football Club as the winner of the club’s 25th Andy Talley Regional Coach of the Year Award at the 86th National Awards Gala. Perkovich was recognized alongside a distinguished list of honorees from Pennsylvania State University, the Universities of Alabama, North Carolina and Southern California, and the Philadelphia Eagles.   

Spreading the word

Susquehanna University was one of only four universities in Pennsylvania featured in Season 8 of The College Tour, a groundbreaking series from Emmy-nominated producers that is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Hear from 10 Susquehanna students about their unique experiences and how SU prepares them for a solid foundation for life.

In 2023, the university also launched a refreshed brand that features the leading message “Be impossible to ignore.” The website and social media describe Susquehanna as “the future-ready institution for today.” These messages are part of an ongoing effort to rebrand Susquehanna and spotlight its investments in each graduate to help them realize their unique potential and lead a successful and meaningful life.