CAMBRIDGE, MA — Norma Wittelshofer Fink, a lifelong advocate for increased opportunities for women, minorities and the poor, died at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 27th. She was 94. Her life reflected a deeply held conviction that opportunities are unequally distributed and concerted effort is required to counter these inequities.
Norma Rose Wittelshofer was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 27, 1925. She graduated from Connecticut College with a BA in economics in 1947.
Mrs. Fink served in diverse capacities in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors over her more than fifty year career. She was appointed and then re-elected three times to the Newton School Committee from 1962 through 1969. During her tenure, she became a founding Board member of METCO (Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity) a voluntary school busing program that currently affords thousands of inner city children access to suburban schools and improved educational opportunity. The program continues today and has grown from 5 to over 30 supporting communities.
After receiving her Masters in Educational Administration at Harvard in 1971, she worked for the Massachusetts Secretary of Education to create more diversity among the Boards of the state’s public universities and colleges, to make them more reflective of the state’s changing population.
At Northeastern University, she directed the Women’s Career Project, a federally funded program to identify women who had been out of the work force and to prepare them through intensive education and coaching for management positions in participating companies.
She was a Program Director of Management Education for the Gulf Management Institute, using education to move women and minorities into mid-level management positions. She also worked as a consultant both to the Executive Office of Economic Affairs under the Dukakis administration and to the Boston Foundation to build capacity among selected high risk grantees.
More recently, she served for over seven years as a consultant in the volunteer-based Executive Service Corps, working with a range of non-profit organizations on strategic planning and board development issues. From 1998 to 2006, she was a Trustee at Cambridge College, whose mission is to serve a diverse group of adults. While on the Board, she chaired the Governance and Personnel Policy Committees.
She and her husband of 44 years, Aaron Fink, enjoyed in later years extensive leisure travel. Together they audited Harvard classes where they mixed with undergraduate students. Mrs. Fink was passionate about her thirty years in a two hundred year old farmhouse in Strafford, Vermont, where she spent summers, volunteered at the local library and nurtured her gardens. She was a superb cook and entertained graciously and often.
She leaves two children from her first marriage to Richard Mintz, Patricia Hill Mintz of Oakland, California and Amy Record of Vershire, Vermont, two step-daughters, Judy Rasher and Karen Mandeville, and three step-grandchildren, Alex and Adam Mandeville and Sage Wolf.
A celebration of her life will take place on Thursday June 6, 2019 at the Cambridge Friends Meeting House (5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge) from 3 – 5 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, contributions in honor of her memory may be made in her name to any organization seeking to improve opportunities for women, minorities, or other disadvantaged people.