‘A Quiet Force for Good’
Susan K. Von Kersburg is remembered for a life devoted to education and generosity.
The Susan K. Von Kersburg Baird Scholarship Celebration
“For someone only 5-foot-2,” longtime friend Brian Hudgel says, “she was a giant of a person.” This is how many people speak about Susan K. Von Kersburg ’62 ’72 — private but ardently curious, quiet but ever-present in the community. “A quiet force for good,” Hudgel says, adding that her generosity was something instinctive and without need for recognition.
Susan K. Von Kersburg and her beloved dog, Finnegan.
The estate of Von Kersburg
While Von Kersburg never sought attention for her generosity, nor attempted to measure it, the $8 million she left to the Baird Scholars program is a defining gift — one that will carry forward the work of future generations of Baird Scholars in the University of Arizona’s W.A. Franke Honors College. Established in 1951, the scholarship has become a pillar of the U of A’s history, providing full tuition and a generous annual stipend to exceptional Arizona high school graduates and opening doors that might otherwise remain closed.
For Von Kersburg, this kind of comprehensive, carefully tailored support aligned seamlessly with her values. Shortly after attending one of the Baird Scholars annual dinners, she began drafting a gift designed to extend the scholarship’s long tradition of creating life-changing opportunities for students in need. The rest, it can be now said, is very much history.
Von Kersburg had established herself as a changemaker long before this gift, supporting many organizations throughout Southern Arizona including the U of A’s Poetry Center and Center for Creative Photography, the Arizona- Sonora Desert Museum, Planned Parenthood and the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.
A dedicated teacher for much of her life, Von Kersburg is remembered by many for her love of education. “Sue was an amazing teacher whose ideas on teaching reading were far ahead of what was popular then,” former colleague Joan Thompson says. Von Kersburg believed in meeting students where their interests lived — an approach, Thompson says, that was particularly transformative in helping struggling high school students develop strong reading comprehension skills long before such methods were widely embraced.
‘Sue smiled easily, laughed easily. She delighted in sweet treats, green chilies and the occasional beer. But oh my, how that spark in her eyes invited exploration, inquiry and curiosity.’
This life dedicated to education began at the U of A, where Von Kersburg earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the College of Education — opportunities that she would spend a lifetime paying forward. Over the course of her career as an educator, Von Kersburg believed learning was not an endeavor necessarily confined to desks or even classrooms, but a continual practice shaped by conversation and private contemplation, in unexplored places. It is unsurprising, therefore, that her gift also includes a $1 million endowment dedicated to supporting Baird Scholars who decide to study abroad — an opportunity offered to scholars every year. “Susan was very politically and culturally aware,” says her friend John P. Schaefer, U of A president emeritus. “All the experiences she had going to Europe — seeing museums there, spending time in some of the cultural capitals — had an impact on her, and I think that’s something that she ultimately transmitted to the Baird Scholars program, wanting scholars to have a chance at the same experiences.”
Karna Walter, assistant dean for student engagement with the W.A. Franke Honors College, stands with Baird Scholar Gayatri Kaimal at the Susan K. Von Kersburg Baird Scholarship Celebration.
Von Kersburg’s legacy reminds us that generosity often arises from not taking such experiences for granted. It reminds us, too, that the gesture of giving back can take many forms and doesn’t require acknowledgment. There is quiet power in the steady, often unseen support that fosters excellence in others. Those who met Susan in Tucson or elsewhere may not have realized the scale and dedication of her giving. Instead, they might’ve been introduced to her beloved dog, Finnegan, or heard one of her famous stories from the golf course. Or about the time she chased a Gila monster from the garage with a broom.
“Sue smiled easily, laughed easily,” close friend Jackie Lapidus says. “She delighted in sweet treats, green chilies and the occasional beer. But oh my, how that spark in her eyes invited exploration, inquiry and curiosity.”
Von Kersburg’s gift will inspire that spirit of exploration, inquiry and curiosity in the next generation of students in Arizona — inviting them to look closely at the world before them, to question it deeply and to move through it with the same generosity of mind and possibility that defined her life.
