Having served on Old Saybrook’s Pension and Benefits Board (PBB) for 32 years, 27 of them as chair, Dr. Suzanne Saunders Taylor relinquished the chairmanship to fellow member Darrell Pataska at the PBB’s Jan. 23 meeting. Taylor will serve the remaining two years of her term as vice chair, lending her guidance and considerable knowledge and experience to Pataska before retiring from the board.

The PBB, together with First Selectman Carl P. Fortuna, Jr., State Representative Devin Carney (R-23), Police Chief Michael A. Spera, and other guests honored Taylor with certificates of appreciation from the town and the state, followed by cake and coffee.

Pataska read a short bio of Taylor from the book Feminists Who Changed America 1963–’75, which noted many of her accomplishments. Had it listed them all, the guests that morning would have remained there well into the afternoon.

A Trailblazing Career

In 1970, Taylor was the first woman to earn her Ph.D. in education administration from UConn. Her dissertation, Attitudes of Superintendents and Board Members in Connecticut Toward Employment and Effectiveness of Women as Public School Administrators, was not only controversial and influential, but prophetic: Her search for a position as a school superintendent wasn’t fruitful, as superintendents and school boards were forthright about not wanting to hire women for those positions, no matter their qualifications.

Taylor’s first job as a Ph.D. was as a claims examiner for unemployment benefits. She also worked for the Girl Scouts of America and then with the Connecticut Commission on Higher Education, she said.

Then, in 1972, she was hired as director of research and retirement planning for the Connecticut Educational Association (CEA), the first woman on the organization’s professional staff. In this position, which she retained for 22 years, she provided data to state legislators and for use in collective bargaining, and focused on women’s issues pertaining to teachers.

While at the CEA, she sponsored 51% Majority: A Connecticut Conference on the Status of Women, inviting Matina Horner, then president of Radcliffe College, to be the keynote speaker.

“I was defending women to give them the rights,” Taylor said of her work then. “They said if you’re a tennis coach, you have to retire if you’re going to have a baby. You can’t stay. If you got married to a fellow teacher, they always transferred the woman. So once they were married, they didn’t want them to be in the same school.

“I think that’s ridiculous,” she said.

Taylor has researched and authored three books, the first based on her research on teacher retirement systems throughout the United States.

“I wrote several things about women and women’s rights and feminism during all this period and I couldn’t get anybody to sponsor my research,” she explained.

In the mid-1980s, she traveled to the University of Pennsylvania to meet with Dan McGill, director of the Wharton School’s Pension Research Center.

“[H]e took me to the Union Club in Philadelphia and said he would hire me and pay the other half of my sabbatical, give me an office, an intern, a secretary, and pay for me to fly around...I went to 25 different states to do this project on the politics of teacher retirement systems,” Taylor said. “That was my first major research book.”

Seeking a publisher, Taylor heard several “Nos” before getting to “Yes.” Public Employee Retirement Systems: The Structure and Politics of Teacher Pensions was published by Cornell University’s Institute of Labor Relations.

“That began my relationship with [the University of Rhode Island, URI], where I developed a course on pensions and investing,” she said. “Then I was hired as an adjunct professor to teach the course, which I’ve taught for over 30 years.”

In 1992, she was also hired as executive director of the URI branch of the Association of University Professors. Toward the end of her tenure there, she worked to resolve a sex discrimination complaint against the College of Engineering.

“I didn’t [retire] until I settled the...case,” she said.

“The [URI] president himself said when we were meeting early on that nobody should have to work in an environment like that,” Taylor explained. “The particular professor was...mistreated and rumors were spread. And there were only three women out of a [faculty] of approximately 60.”

Her two additional academic books are Negotiating Health Insurance in the Workplace: A Basic Guide as well as one that discusses the results of her “study on how faculty retire in the U.K. and the U.S.,” she said.

Her most recent book, published in 2014, was entirely different. Love Letters to a Monk tells the story of her aunt, Edna May Sole, and her friendship with her late husband’s Williams College roommate, who’d become an Episcopal monastic.

Now retired from teaching as well, she is hoping for an opportunity to research and write another book on “how people retire and how they live,” she said.

Taylor helped to found and became a commissioner of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women in Connecticut. The commission, as she pointed out, was not truly “permanent,” however: It was abolished in 2016 at the age of 43 and was recently established as a non-profit organization. She has made sure Carney is aware of her displeasure with this development, she said.

She is also is a master gardener in Rhode Island and Connecticut and a member of the Philadelphia Horticultural Society.

An Extraordinary Volunteer

“[Y]ou can see that the town has been fortunate to have a volunteer of this caliber on its PBB,” said Pataska, adding that Taylor “not only advocated for women but also had a career-long focus on pension and healthcare research and trends.”

Fortuna read aloud the town proclamation in honor of Taylor, which noted that she “has been a steward of the firemen’s retirement since its inception.”

The firefighters are “the love of my life,” Taylor said later that morning.

Twenty-seven years ago, she and the town’s actuary instituted the defined benefit retirement plan for Saybrook’s volunteer firefighters, she explained.

“We tend to believe that we have less trouble recruiting firefighters because we have a pension that we offer,” she said. “Some small towns have trouble keeping firefighters, but this has been an incentive and they’re happy with it.”

The town’s proclamation also states that Taylor is “a staunch advocate for employee retirement education,” that she “led a pension study that resulted in the creation of a defined contribution plan for the town,” and noted her development of descriptive brochures for employee retirement plans.

Carney presented the proclamation from the state, which was “introduced by myself, State Senator Paul Formica, and State Senator Norm Needleman,” he said.

“Our local community has counted on your vigilance and leadership,” he read. “Your commitment to the town and its residents is much appreciated and we are grateful for your many years of service and wish you much happiness for many more years to come.”