Remembering Liza Lee: A Visionary in Tweed
With the passing of Hockaday’s beloved leader, Dallas lost a petite giant who proved that true leaders leave us better than they found us.
There was something wonderfully deceptive about Elizabeth “Liza” Lee.
With her perfectly tailored tweeds and impeccable manners, she looked every inch the headmistress of one of America’s finest preparatory schools – and she was. But beneath that beautifully composed exterior was a restless reformer: a woman who cared enough about the future to make the present uncomfortable.
For 14 years, Liza led the Hockaday School in Dallas, honoring the traditions that made the school exceptional while refusing to let tradition become an excuse for standing still. She modernized its academics, raised its ambitions, and opened its doors wider to students who are too often excluded from institutions like it.
That mattered especially at the turn of this century, when the Texas of tomorrow was only beginning to come into view. Before the state’s demographic change became a boardroom conversation, Liza saw it coming. And unlike many ensconced in Dallas’ most comfortable neighborhoods, she did not view that change as something to fear, resist or merely accommodate.
Instead, she saw an opportunity.
That conviction led her far beyond the manicured lawns and cloistered campuses of North Dallas, eventually bringing her to a young effort built for students whose potential far exceeded the opportunities afforded by their ZIP codes: the Future Leaders Program (FLP).
Liza would become, in many ways, the program’s patron saint.
One morning, after I dropped my daughter off at Hockaday, Liza summoned me to her office. After the usual pleasantries, Liza let out a sigh and asked whether we had the support of Dallas ISD for the FLP. It was apparent that she had no interest in lending Hockaday’s name to something meaningful, only to watch it become hostage to shifting personalities or passing enthusiasm.
I assured her we did.
Then she told me what she wanted in return for Hockaday’s participation: a 20-year commitment.
Her proposal was beautifully audacious: for every year FLP continued, Hockaday’s commitment would extend another 20 years. She was not interested in a pilot program, a ceremonial partnership, or a good deed that could disappear when the people who created it moved on. Liza wanted permanence – a commitment set in stone while she was still there to see it through – and she did exactly that.
She then enlisted the school’s finest teachers and told them their participation was “an opportunity of a lifetime.” She didn’t see the Southern Dallas students within FLP as recipients of someone else’s generosity – she saw them as students worthy of Hockaday’s very best – nothing less. And that distinction tells you everything about Liza Lee.
She knew opportunity meant little without expectation– so she expected more: of her students, her teachers, and the institutions around her.
Former students remember both her strictness and her extraordinary warmth. Decades after leaving Hockaday, they still called her, and she still answered. She remembered their families, their struggles, their dreams, and what they were capable of becoming. Those who knew her describe a leader who demanded excellence without making the person on the receiving end feel diminished by the demand.
Ultimately, she saw people – and pushed institutions to see them, too.
Her influence spread far beyond one campus, as well. Over the course of her career, she reimagined what schools could offer, and helped establish the Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School, the first all-girls public school in Texas.
She understood that excellence and inclusion are not competing ambitions – for at their best, they reinforce one another.
The Future Leaders Program is different because of Liza. Hockaday is different because of her. Dallas is different because of her. Generations of students who may never know precisely how many doors she opened will nevertheless find themselves dancing through them. That is the peculiar gift of a true luminary – eventually, the future they fought for stops looking radical and instead, becomes reality.
Liza Lee saw that future before it arrived. And then, with her characteristic poise, determination, and a tiny tweed jacket, she went to work building it.
Commentary penned by William A. Brewer III, founder of the Brewer Foundation’s Future Leaders Program.