Shining Lights
In April, Moravian’s Alumni & Community Awards celebrated alumni, students, and community partners who are exemplars of the Moravian University mission and demonstrate transformative leadership in a world of change.
2022 Comenius Award - Susiehyer '76
The Comenius Award is given in recognition of outstanding achievement or service in an alumna’s or alumnus’s field of work. This is the Alumni Association’s lifetime achievement award.
Susiehyer has been drawing and painting since she was a child. “I remember drawing a pair of ceramic flamingos my mother kept on the dining room table when I was 4 years old,” she says. “I knew from that moment I would be an artist when I grew up.” That 4-year-old was certainly prescient, but what she didn’t know was just how successful an artist she would become.
Working professionally since 1976, Susie has received scholarships, grants, and awards for her paintings, including two international design awards. She is a signature member of both Oil Painters of America and the American Impressionist Society, and she served as a national vice president of the Women’s Caucus for Art and past president of the New Orleans chapter. Her work has appeared in numerous galleries and national exhibitions and hangs in many private and corporate collections. Susie’s paintings are represented by galleries in Colorado and the Southwest.
While the subject matter in much of Susie’s work may be distinctly landscape, her interest lies primarily in exploring the visual relationships occurring underneath the subject—how large value and color statements relate to each other in a painting or how the shapes of light and shadow complement and work with each other to make the viewer’s eye move around the painting. “I love to explore how to put the paint down or what the edges are doing,” says Susie, “but what excites me most is the bigger, yet occult, abstract design underneath the painting. I’m always experimenting in the studio to keep a fresh eye, chasing an idea and the many ways that idea could look on canvas.”
Susie has been published in the celebrated books Landscapes of Colorado and Art of the National Parks: Historic Connections, Contemporary Interpretations as well as the book series American Art Collector and Best of America: Oil Artists and Artisans. She has been featured in the magazines Southwest Art, Fine Art Connoisseur, Plein Air, and Art of the West. Her work has also appeared on the covers of Art Life, Evergreen Living, and Mountain Country Life.
And publications continue to celebrate Susie and her work. She is featured in this year’s April/May issue of Western Art and Architecture, one of the most beautiful and respected publications in the art world. Susie earned her BA in fine art and art history from Moravian in 1976, and throughout much of her career, she sought opportunities to refine and expand her talent and repertoire, including programs at the Baum School of Art and the University of West Florida. She attended the Art Students League of Denver and participated in workshops whenever she could, with artists such as Quang Ho, Kim English, Jay Moore, Ron Hicks, and Kevin Weckbach. In 2001, Susie completed the Denver Botanic Gardens Certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration.
But Susie credits her Moravian experience as being the most formative. “One of the most important takeaways was the ‘permission’ to believe in myself,” she says. “That belief gave me the motivation, determination, and drive to pursue a career as a fine artist and make it work for me and my family. Not one faculty member, administrator, coach, or classmate ever said to me, ‘You can’t.’ The culture and attitude at Moravian said, ‘You can.’ Once I believed that, I lost my fear of failure and rejection, which is an inherent part of making art, of making a career of fine art, and of life in general.”
Recently retired from the plein air circuit, Susie is grateful to have had the opportunity, through the sales of her work, to have an active role in helping raise significant funding for our national parks and monuments’ adjunct associations, art centers, art schools, and art organizations, fulfilling a responsibility and desire to give back, which she says was instilled in her by Moravian’s academic, social, and spiritual culture.
2022 Young Alumni Achievement Award
Brittany Garzillo ’13
The Young Alumni Achievement Award is presented to an alumnus or alumna who has achieved exceptional success in his or her profession and who has graduated within the past two to 10 years.
Presented by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the Emmy Awards represent one of the highest achievements in television. At 31, Brittany Garzillo has already won one Emmy and been nominated 13 times for the mid-Atlantic region. As a student, she won a College Production Award at the Mid-Atlantic Emmys as a writer, reporter, and producer of Three Students, Three Expressions of Art at Moravian College.
The summer after she graduated, PBS39 offered her a position as a reporter/producer and host of the station’s half-hour weekly news magazine program, Focus. Among other accomplishments, she served as associate producer for the documentary Second to None: The Liberty High School Grenadier Band, which won a NATAS Mid-Atlantic Emmy. After four years with PBS, Brittany accepted a position as an anchor and reporter with the NBC affiliate WGAL News 8 in Lancaster.
Then it was on to Chicago, the third-largest television market in the country, where Brittany really put her skills to the test. She was on the front lines of the pandemic; reported live when rioting broke out in Chicago in the summer of 2020; led the station’s coverage of the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and made history reporting while walking through miles of protests, sharing the stories of those demanding change.
As of November 2021, Garzillo works out of New York City as a correspondent for Fox News Channel.
2022 Shining Star Community Partnership Awards
The Shining Star Community Partnership Award is presented to a business, organization, or individual (excluding current students, employees, and alumni) that/who supports Moravian University’s mission to prepare individuals for a reflective life, a fulfilling career, and transformative leadership in a world of change. Strategic partnerships may include collaboration for shared resources, opportunities for innovation, and philanthropic engagement.
This year’s award went to Kathleen Halkins, RN, and St. Luke’s University Health Network.
2022 Emerging Leader Award
Dylan Runne ’16
The Emerging Leader Award is presented to an alumnus or alumna who graduated within the past 10 years, for his or her dedicated service to and leadership at Moravian University.
Dylan Runne doesn’t spare a minute when it comes to eyeing and achieving a goal. The professional hydroplane racer drives his boats at speeds up to 150 miles an hour to win championships all over North America. Since graduating from Moravian in 2016, Runne has focused his efforts and found early success in enterprise software implementation. In 2019, he saw an opportunity in the fast-paced e-commerce world to help businesses shape and drive their digital transformations without the typical project bloat of the big-box agencies. He founded Fenom Digital, where he is CEO. Fenom is a Salesforce partner that focuses on large-scale retail digital transformations. Runne steers go-to-market strategies and day-to-day operations while leading a 101-person—and counting—global team.
Within three months of launching, Fenom landed its first $1 million–plus engagement with a $1 billion consumer goods brand, triumphing over the industry’s top agencies for the business. Today, three years after launch, Fenom is the leading boutique digital agency for Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Revenue has grown 600 percent, and the company supports more than $3 billion in processed online revenue annually. Fenom is the chosen service partner to David Yurman, PacSun, Hot Topic, and Coldwater Creek, among others.
But while Runne has soared forward in his career, he has not left Moravian behind. In 2021, he partnered with the business and computer science departments on an internship program that launched this spring. Thirteen students were hand selected to participate and learn all aspects of technical and business-related activities within a Salesforce implementation project.
2022 Benigna Education Award
Elizabeth Kuehner Mauch ’93
The Benigna Education Award recognizes an alumna or alumnus for her or his outstanding contributions to the field of education. Administrators, college professors, elementary and secondary teachers, and all those in the teaching profession are eligible. To be considered, nominees should have made significant innovations in the teaching profession or otherwise substantially impacted the education process, and in addition have demonstrated dedication to the community at large.
Elizabeth Kuehner Mauch’s career as an educator adds up to excellence. She received her bachelor of science in mathematics from Moravian in 1993 and also completed here at Moravian the requirements to receive her Instructional 1 Teaching Certificate from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She then traveled across the river to Lehigh University to earn her master’s and doctoral degrees in mathematics.
Kuehner Mauch first served as a professor of mathematics at Bloomsburg University, where she became dean of the College of Education in 2009, holding that position until 2017. During her service as dean, she oversaw a successful re-accreditation by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), an accreditation the college had lost prior to her tenure. She also led the university to what was at that time its largest gift to date—a donation from Mrs. Susan McDowell to launch the McDowell Institute for Teacher Excellence in Positive Behavior Support at Bloomsburg.
A dedicated advocate for advancing education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), Kuehner Mauch launched the Regional STEM Education Center in collaboration with faculty, regional school districts, and business leaders. The center attracts high-achieving high school juniors and seniors who want to get a head start on their college careers in STEM and education disciplines.
Today, Kuehner Mauch serves as the 15th president of Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, having previously fulfilled the roles of vice president of academic affairs and dean of the college. In May and June of 2019, she traveled to Poland as a Fulbright Specialist. She taught and collaborated with science and engineering faculty at the University of Lodz on the topic of flipped classrooms.
Kuehner Mauch draws no boundaries around her work to advance innovation in education.
2022 Haupert Humanitarian Award
Shane Burcaw ’14 and Sarah Burcaw ’13
Shane Burcaw is the author of several award-winning books about disability. He is the cofounder and president of a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization called Laughing at My Nightmare (LAMN) and a renowned public speaker who has performed across the country, from universities to elementary schools to Fortune 500 companies. On their YouTube channel, Squirmy and Grubs, which has gained more than 850,000 subscribers and worldwide media attention, he and his wife, Hannah Aylward Burcaw, share a hilarious and authentic examination of what it’s like to be in an interabled relationship.
Sarah Burcaw, the cofounder of Laughing at My Nightmare, is a proud cousin and best friend of Shane Burcaw. The idea for the organization was born in 2012 during their lunches together in college. They would discuss the incredible reach of Shane’s personal blog and their desire to teach his audience about the needs of the disability community. Sarah became the active director of development for LAMN in 2015 and now works to raise funds each year to propel the group’s programs, which are focused on supplying equipment to people living with disabilities and offering an inclusivity-based program to elementary school students.
Sarah and Shane have worked together to spread the mission of LAMN through motivational speeches, fundraising campaigns, and events, and they are nowhere close to slowing down. Since its founding, LAMN has supplied half a million dollars in assistance to people living with disabilities.
2022 Alumni Fellows
The Alumni Association annually recognizes several full-time Moravian University students for their superior scholastic merit and the outstanding contributions they have made to campus life and to the community.
This year, the association honored Michael T. Burke IV ’23, Annabelle N. Callis ’23, Gabrielle H. Demchak ’23, and Carly R. Moor ’22.
2022 Medallion of Merit
Jonathan D. Soden ’91
Service is second nature to Jonathan Soden, who was taught at an early age that the point of life is to do good—to make the world a better place. Today, Soden helps finance Moravian’s goals for sustainability. In 2007, with a contribution from himself and his parents, he established the Soden Family Trust for Sustainability and became an active member of Moravian’s Sustainability Committee.
He partnered with Moravian to establish the Greenhound Fund, contributing $20,000. The Greenhound Fund supports projects that reduce campus energy use and costs, and the savings are funneled back to the fund, making it—sustainable. Soden continues to give to the Soden Trust and the Greenhound Fund every year. In 2020, Soden helped launch an annual campaign at Moravian on Earth Day to encourage other alumni to contribute to the Greenhound Fund. And in 2021, he committed $100,000 to start a Moravian University Scholarship Fund in his mother’s honor to provide scholarships to undergraduates studying to become educators.
Away from Moravian, Soden involves himself with the Bethlehem Food Co-Op, a community-owned grocery store that brings high-quality, locally sourced goods at reasonable prices to low-income members of our community. The co-op fits a model of sustainability by keeping local money local and producing only a small carbon footprint through local sourcing.