The Pulteney Street SurveySpring '25

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From Beantown with Love

Cynthia Fish

Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish ’82, L.H.D. ’23

Gelsthorpe Fish served for 16 years as a member of the Hobart and William Smith Board of Trustees, including as Vice Chair, and is now an honorary member. An active community volunteer and advocate, she has spent her life and career in service to people and institutions that advance humanity in mind, body and spirit. Since graduating from William Smith with a degree in psychology, she has supported vital causes — from the environment to higher education to research on the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and the care of families and patients affected by it.

During the William Smith Centennial celebration in 2008, she was the lead donor to establish the Centennial Center, which has advanced HWS’ curriculum around entrepreneurial studies and leadership. Awarded an Alumnae Citation and the Centennial Bowl in recognition of her service to her alma mater, she has served in numerous volunteer roles at HWS and supported campus projects like the Gearan Center for the Performing Arts where the Fish Screening Room is named in her honor, and the creation of scholarships.

Gelsthorpe Fish grew up in the Boston area. Her father, a marketing executive, graduated from Hamilton College and was on the Board of Trustees there. Her brother was a student at Hamilton when Gelsthorpe Fish was looking at colleges. “My father’s life was completely transformed by a small, liberal arts education. It was just in our blood and the religion of our family,” she says. “But I had a math teacher at Northfield Mount Hermon who went to Hobart – Dick Peller ’71 – and who sent five or six students to Hobart and William Smith each year. I picked HWS over Hamilton because I wanted to be in my own place, to make my way without being my brother’s little sister or the daughter of a trustee.”

The women she met in her first semester on campus – they all lived on the same floor in Potter – have remained especially close. “We have been bonded by life’s tragedies and successes, and I’m so grateful to call them friends,” Gelsthorpe Fish says.

Interested in early childhood education, she did her student teaching at West Street Elementary School. “That experience of going into the community of Geneva, working with the children, and getting to know the excellent teachers there – and then taking that practical experience back into the classroom for discussion – I just loved it. Connecting with the Geneva community was fascinating and it made me love my college experience even more.”

Gelsthorpe Fish met John Fish in middle school when, because of an alphabetical connection, they were in the same homeroom. She went to Northfield Mount Hermon and he went to Tabor Academy. They reconnected at a high school football game and dated on and off through college.

“Suffolk Construction started the year we graduated from college,” Gelsthorpe Fish says. “While John was working to build the business, I was in retail for The Lodge at Harvard Square.” She eventually became the merchandise coordinator for 26 Lodge stores up and down the East Coast. “After we were married, John and I looked at each other and decided that with both of us working like crazy, something had to give if we wanted to have a family.”

Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish and John F. Fish.

Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish and John F. Fish.

I REMAIN ENGAGED WITH HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH BECAUSE IT IS AN AUTHENTIC TRAINING GROUND FOR HOW TO BUILD A COMMUNITY – HOW TO TEACH, LEARN AND CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER. Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish ’82, L.H.D. ’23

Gelsthorpe Fish left retail and earned her master’s degree in education from Tufts, all while raising three young daughters. “After a good deal of thought, I decided to stay home to focus on them,” she explains. “John and I were also spending a good amount of time strategizing how to grow Suffolk, and John was going gangbusters. It worked for us.” Today, they have five grandchildren.

In 2005, Hobart and William Smith reached out to Gelsthorpe Fish to see if she might be interested in reconnecting with her alma mater.

“Life was so busy for so many years,” Gelsthorpe Fish explains. “What I needed was a reason to be engaged, and someone simply asking me to do so.”

After meeting some of HWS’ trustees, like Carolyn Carr McGuire ’78, L.H.D. ’18 and Maureen Collins Zupan ’72, P’09, L.H.D. ‘16, Gelsthorpe Fish joined the Board in 2006.

“I definitely learned more from the Board than they learned from me,” Gelsthorpe Fish says. “It was a wonderful experience with such a diverse group of people, a collaborative atmosphere, and authenticity that is not always a characteristic of Board work. The best Boards are ones with people who have very different viewpoints, and we always had that on the HWS Board. Some of the leaders made a huge impact – Chair Emeritus Tom Melly ’52, L.H.D. ’02 in particular – and they taught me a great deal about how small institutions like Hobart and William Smith survive. It’s philanthropy.”

Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish receives an honorary degree from President Mark D. Gearan in 2023.

Cynthia Gelsthorpe Fish receives an honorary degree from President Mark D. Gearan in 2023.

What Gelsthorpe Fish also learned is that the institution she remembered from two decades ago had changed. “The values of the place had been developed much more significantly,” she says. “Hobart and William Smith had solidified, and I attribute much of that to Mark and Mary Gearan. What was happening was so compelling and it raised the quality of our Colleges to a different level. Institutions that have a mission statement around human beings and the betterment of the world are the very best kind. That’s Hobart and William Smith.”

“I remain engaged with Hobart and William Smith because it is an authentic training ground for how to build a community – how to teach, learn and care about each other,” Gelsthorpe Fish says. “It’s the realization that each one of us can make a difference individually and collectively in an increasingly complex world.”