Hidden HERstories | Anne Everest Wojtkowski

Anne Everest Wojtkowski (1935-2014)
Boston University B.A. Class of 1956

Anne Everest Wojtkowski was the first woman to graduate from the College of Engineering (then College of Industrial Technology) in 1956. After spending some time working in Boston, Everest returned to her hometown of Pittsfield, MA to marry and raise her family, and became a math and engineering professor at Berkshire Community College. In 1983, she and another female professor initiated a lawsuit against BCC over an alleged lack of promotional and pay equity, which became a springboard for the national movement for equal pay. She then went on to become the Mayor of Pittsfield from 1988-1992, the first woman in the role, where she championed equal pay for female college faculty and early childhood education. Wojtkowski died in 2014 at the age of 79.

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Full Biography

Anne Everest Wojtkowski (1935-2014)
Boston University B.A. Class of 1956

Anne Everest Wojtkowski was the first woman to graduate from the Boston University College of Industrial Technology, which would later become the College of Engineering. She was an exceptional leader in Western Massachusetts as a professor in STEM, as an advocate of equal rights for women, and eventually as the city’s first woman mayor.

Anne Everest came from a family of engineers in Western Massachusetts. Her father worked as a methods and equipment specialist for General Electric (a “GE Man”), and her elder brother also worked in GE programs. The record shows that from an early age, Anne was interested in industrial work despite her gender being an anomaly in her profession. For example, at age 14, she was denied admission to a boys-only technical program at Pittsfield High School. It is easy to imagine her frustration at this kind of exclusion, and that being a woman prevented her from progressing in her goals, knowledge, and experiences.

In her college years, Anne initially attended the University of Massachusetts for a year where she studied science, but she then moved to Boston to participate in the engineering community. In Boston, she worked as a statistician in the Jordan Marsh department store by day, while simultaneously taking courses at MIT by night. By excelling in courses in calculus, physics, engineering drawing, and descriptive geometry, she successfully proved her eligibility to enroll in BU’s new aeronautical engineering program––a necessary demonstration since the department had initially been skeptical of her skills. Through rigorous coursework in the company of male colleagues only, she received a Bachelors of Science in 1956. At BU, she was also active in the student community as a member of the varsity sailing team and women’s judiciary.

In the fall of 1954, The Berkshire Eagle highlighted Anne’s accomplishments in Boston, specifically as a student of engineering. The newspaper told the story of the local student moving into “shop” courses in the middle years of her degree, in sheet metal, manufacturing, and maintenance processes. According to the paper, she was advised to look as “feminine as possible under the circumstances,” so she decided to sew her own aqua denim dress for her hands-on work. By this point in her career, she clearly demonstrated her dedication to engineering, and would not allow her gender to be a hindrance.

After graduation, she was the first woman engineer to be hired at Arthur D. Little, a Cambridge consulting firm. There, she worked as an applied thermodynamicist with thermal production systems. She excelled in her research there: In 1961, she presented at a frequency control conference about her research on reducing the power consumption of crystal ovens, and also published a chapter about “The High-Magnesium Content Aluminum Alloys at Room and Liquid Nitrogen Temperatures” in Advances in Cryogenic Engineering. She published elsewhere on metallurgy and thermal protection system designs as well. Meanwhile, at this consulting firm, she came to learn that she earned $5000 less than her colleagues, “because they didn’t know what to pay me.” As she became increasingly accomplished, Anne continued to experience gender bias and inequity.

In July 1962, she married Thomas C. Wojtkowski, a lawyer who had begun representing the 5th Berkshire District in the State House of Representatives in 1952. Thomas had lobbied for the establishment of community colleges in the 1950s, leading to the establishment of the state’s first, Berkshire Community College (BCC). Thomas played an important role in making community colleges more central in Massachusetts, and clearly he and Anne cared deeply about the accessibility of higher education. Anne would go on to work for BCC, so the family continued to have a tight-knit relationship with the institution.

Having been born in the Pittsfield area, Anne returned there to teach, be with her husband, and raise her children in the following decades. In 1969 she began teaching at BCC, where she worked part-time until 1973 when she became full-time. She taught courses on engineering, physics, mathematics, computer programming, and energy until 2004. Her time there was defined by her hard work, dedication to her community, as well as her continued struggle for equity as a woman.

Anne Wojtkowski became a Professor of Engineering and Mathematics following a controversial lawsuit in 1983. She was one of eight women faculty at BCC––who became known as the “Berkshire Eight”––to challenge college president Jonathan Daube (1979-1987) with sex discrimination, in both pay and academic promotion. This action directly followed the college promoting two male professors in 1982, bringing the number of professors there to 21 men and two women. As a result, Anne and the seven others charged that they were denied the promotions and equal pay that the college offered to similarly qualified men. For example, Anne discovered in 1985 that she earned $7,000 less than men in her department who were similarly qualified. While initially the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination actually denied the case, in 1986, the women went to federal court with the help of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. In 1987, the case expanded to a class action suit that involved all fifteen community colleges in the state, including a case from 1976 that was previously inactive, involving women at Massasoit Community College. Meanwhile, in an allegedly unrelated action, the college promoted Everest as full professor in 1986. The lawsuit finally reached an out-of-court settlement in 1994 for $10.5 million: those ten years later, she received $35,000 from the state. These actions were not small, given that Anne stood among 270 staff and 930 faculty who received back pay and damages for sex discrimination in the case. According to some, this lawsuit paved the way for many other women in the US to receive equal pay.

Clearly a leader and willing to be outspoken for her community, Anne had also expressed interest in local politics early on. At age 32 in 1967, she won her local election for a four-year term on the school committee, even while accusing the Pittsfield School Department of lack of curriculum coordination. Over the course of the following decades, she served as chairwoman of the School Building Needs Commission and oversaw a “modernization” project of Pittsfield High School that was completed in 1977. She’s also credited with one of the state’s first early childhood education programs, which she helped establish in 1970. In 1981, she made her first bid for mayor of Pittsfield. She ran successfully several years later, and took four years off from BCC to become mayor between 1988-1992.

Clearly, she was highly active in the Berkshire community. She helped found Berkshire Enterprises, a program affiliated with BCC that trains hundreds of locals in entrepreneurial management and development. She served on the board of the Adirondack Sky Center & Observatory, and even donated a telescope. As a result of her dedication, she received various awards throughout the years, including Woman of the Year Award from the Berkshire Business and Professional Women’s Association in 1985; the Massachusets Woman of the Year from the Massachusetts Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs in 1985; The Society of Women Engineers Outstanding Woman in Engineering Award in 1988; the Boston University College of Engineering Alumni Award for Distinguished Service to Her Community in 1991; and the Berkshire Community College President’s Award in 1999.

Anne was interested in her community’s wellbeing in the present, but also had an interest in history. Toward the end of her life she kept busy by writing and crafting historical projects, completing one book on a local theater renovation, one on porcelain and pottery shoes, and she began one on linens from Madeira. From 1997 to 2000, she also served as president of the Berkshire Historical Society.

Anne Everst Wojtkowski leaves behind a multifaceted legacy. She paved the way for women in engineering, beginning with her fervent desire to attend BU’s nascent engineering program. She also set an incredible example of the power of local politics, and the rewards of investing in a local community on many levels. She died in 2014, in Pittsfield, the place where she was born.

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