Bulletin: The Miss Porter's School Magazine, Spring 2023

Gaylynn Burroughs ’95

Daisy Pin recipient

“Nothing is impossible to learn. There’s something about accepting challenges not being afraid to try, to persist, to believe that you can do something and knowing that I have everything that I need to figure out how to do this.”

Growing up in a working-class Black neighborhood in Irvington, New Jersey, boarding school was not on Gaylynn Burroughs’s radar. So, when her middle school teacher invited her and a few other students to have lunch with someone from her town who was then at Miss Porter’s School, Ms. Burroughs was amazed to learn that such a place existed.

“Knowing there was a person who was there, who grew up in our neighborhood, made it seem like it was something achievable and tangible and real,” she said, noting that she decided to apply to Porter’s after that lunch with Crystal Dickinson ’93. Admitted on a full scholarship, she embarked on a journey that led her to Yale University, to law school at New York University and into a career advocating for women and families.

Porter’s Head of School Katherine Windsor presented Ms. Burroughs with the Daisy Pin the Alumnae Association’s highest honor during Reunion last fall in recognition of her many contributions to the school. She is the youngest person and the first African American to receive this high honor.

A trustee from 2012 to 2021, Ms. Burroughs was a class representative for more than a decade and served on or led committees for her class’s 5th, 10th, 20th and 25th reunions. She also served on the school’s reaccreditation committee and is a member of the Sarah Porter Society, whose members have served as a trustee or on the alumnae board. Now the director of workplace equality and senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C., Ms. Burroughs works to shape federal policy on workplace issues such as unequal pay, discrimination against pregnant women, sexual harassment and more.

“Gaylynn is our modern-day Sarah Porter in the sense of thinking [about] and advocating for women’s rightful place at the table,” Dr. Windsor said in an interview, noting that Ms. Burroughs

Miss Porter’s School

Past Daisy Pin honorees

1963

Mrs. Robert Porter Keep*

Margaret Porter Ijams ’12

Ellenor Cook Lane ’15

Katharine Bunker Parsons ’18

Eleanor Ames Powell ’24

Mary DuBois Schwarz ’29

Annie Burr Auchincloss Lewis ’20

1965

Mrs. Hollis French*

Harriet McClure Stuart ’07

1967

Anna Matheson Wood ’01

1969

Katharine Derr Barney ’18

1970

Dorothy Dennis Marsh ’10

1973

Nancy Fenton Perkins ’35

Gloria Barnes Van Norden ’41

1979

Elizabeth Buffinton Briggs ’44

1980

Polly Fenton Dickerson ’37

Alice Rutgers Dodge ’37

1981

Emily Parsons Ridgway ’29

1982

Louisa Copeland Duemling ’54

1984

Margaret Porter Davis ’52

Elizabeth Hanavan Hube

Lynn Weyerhaeuser Day ’49

1986

Caroline Morgan Macomber ’50

1988

Margaret Taube Harper ’53

1989

Edwina Shea Millington ’49

1990

Lucy Pulling Cutting ’54

1993

Rachel Hammond Breck ’25

1994

Emily Ridgway Crisp ’59

Eleanor Ashforth Harvey ’43

1995

Marie Powell Hincks ’45

1996

Jean Marckwald Chapin ’56

1997

Alice Babst Bent ’27

Sally du Pont Cahill ’47

1999

Judy Olin Higgins ’54

2002

Virginia Wells Truesdale ’52

2003

Isabel Morrell Beadleston ’28

2004

Milbrey Rennie Taylor ’64

2005

Edith McBride Bass ’50

Beverley Waud Sutherland ’55

2006

Marianna Mead O’Brien*

2007

M. Burch Tracy Ford*

2008

Elizabeth Mead Merck ’38

2009

Barbara Higgins Epifanio ’79

2012

Mimi Colgate Kirk ’57

2013

Judith Milliken Holden ’68

2014

Margaret Nash Gifford ’48

2015

Anne Stillman Nordeman ’65

2018

Nancy Klingenstein Simpkins ’73

2022

Gaylynn A. Burroughs ’95

has been a trusted advisor over the years.

“Sarah Porter founded the school because she saw that lack of education was a barrier to women being able to actualize themselves, and Gaylynn has linked arms with me to ask, ‘What do girls need today?’ She is able to provide me with clarity on what the barriers are today and, also, what some of the solutions are.”

*Former head of school

Ms. Burroughs said it was “a huge honor” and a “shock” to be awarded the Daisy Pin. “I really had no idea! My mother was there, and she said she took me up to Porter’s in 1991 and that I just never left. It’s not only the school but the community it has fostered … the school has given me so much and I feel privileged that I’m able to give back.

“I was very lucky growing up, and very aware that my personal situation could have turned out really differently,” she said. “It always seemed unfair that the opportunities I had weren’t given to everybody. I didn’t set out to be a lawyer as much as I set out to have an impact on people’s lives.”

Reflecting on her time in Farmington, Ms. Burroughs said she was grateful for the confidence she gained and for the realization that “nothing is impossible to learn. There’s something about accepting challenges not being afraid to try, to persist, to believe that you can do something and knowing that I have everything that I need to figure out how to do this.”

This has served her well, she said, because “unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. There are people who are going to tell you you can’t do something because they don’t like the way you look, or the way you talk, or where you came from, or where you work any number of things you have no control over.”

Married to Matthew Howard and the mother of 13-year-old Zora, Ms. Burroughs said she would be thrilled if her daughter ended up at Miss Porter’s. “But I’ve told Zora that this has to be her own decision and that she has to make her own way,” she said.

“Knowing there was a person who was there, who grew up in our neighborhood, made it seem like it was something achievable and tangible and real.”