Muskingum News

At Muskingum’s 2013 Alumni Weekend, held June 14 – 16 on the campus, Susanne Hussey Burlingame ’63 received the inaugural President’s Medal during the Alumni Convocation.  The medal was created to recognize those who have served the University with special distinction.

Sue Burlingame has embraced a life of service to our University, her community, and communities across the nation.

She earned her Muskingum Bachelor of Science degree magna cum laude in Chemistry. Throughout her life, she has demonstrated a strong commitment to education, as a teacher of high school chemistry and mathematics, and as a champion of the local library and its seminal role in opening the doors to knowledge for community members of all ages.

A dedicated volunteer, Sue Burlingame devotes her time and talents to her Presbyterian Church, civic groups in her Chatham, New Jersey communities, and the Pioneers, the largest industry-related service organization in the world. Formerly known as the Telephone Pioneers of America, the Pioneers group links current and retired telecommunications employees across the United States and Canada. She has worked in partnership with her husband Harold W. (Hal) Burlingame, Class of 1962, to develop the capacity of the Pioneers and enhance the organization’s ability to carry out its grassroots mission of service “country to country, city to city, and neighbor to neighbor.”  She has helped her community build on the foundation of a significant Pioneers initiative to feed the homeless, sharing her expertise and service ethos in the creation of the Interfaith Council for Homeless Families.  Now known as Family Promise of Morris County, NJ, this non-sectarian, non-profit agency brings together more than 1600 congregants from 75 congregations of differing faiths to provide shelter and services for homeless children and their families.

Since Hal Burlingame’s 1994 election as Chair of the Board of Trustees, Sue Burlingame has served Muskingum by designing and leading significant special events for alumni and friends across the nation, campus community members, and Trustee families.  She has joined Hal Burlingame in generous philanthropy to Muskingum, which has shaped the University’s future and helped ensure that its historic excellence will continue to endure throughout time.

Sue and Hal Burlingame are the parents of Marjorie Burlingame Hancock, Class of 1991, and Betsy Burlingame Wood. Their Muskingum legacy family includes their mothers M. Elizabeth Pickens Hussey, Class of 1932 – one of Muskingum’s first graduates to major in geology – and Elsie Wagner Burlingame, Class of 1960.