Elizabeth Kiss

Virginia & Balliol 1983

Watch Video Interview

Young Elizabeth sat in a rowing boat, hair in a ponytail, smiling, and holding an oar. The water is seen around her.

Balck and white photo of a group of 5 female rowers mid competition.

Elizabeth Esther Kiss & Jeffrey Leigh Holzgrefe Oxford, England 1984 (2)

A group of Scholars in the Bluebell woods, surrounded by bluebells. All are smiling and posing for the camera, Elizabeth is laying on the ground, in the centre of the photo, and smiling, with Scholars around her.

A group photo of around 50 Scholars grouped together posing for a photo. All are smiling and crouching around, Elizabeth is sat on the floor in the bottom left corner, surrounded by Scholars.

Elizabeth stood with a group of friends in front of a University Challenge podium reading 'Hull' and 'Balliol-Oxford'. There are festive decorations around them, with the host wearing a Christmas jumper and a Christmas tree displayed behind the contestants. Everyone is holding a glass of prosecco and is holding it up to the camera, smiling.

Elizabeth is stood at the front left with a group of 6 Scholars, all are dressed in formal clothes and smiling. They are standing on different steps, so are staggered to ensure that all fit in the shot.

Elizabeth rowing for Balliol, Torpids 1984.

Christ Church Regatta, 1984.

Elizabeth and Jeff at the Rhodes Ball, 1984.

Elizabeth with Scholars in a Bluebell Wood, 2022.

Character, Service, and Leadership Retreat 2023.

Elizabeth with her Balliol teammates celebrating their win on BBC Christmas University Challenge, 2022.

Dinner with Kenyan & East African Scholars.

Born in Queens, New York, Elizabeth Kiss studied at Davidson College before going to Oxford to read for a BPhil and DPhil in philosophy. After a period as a tenure-track academic at Princeton, she became the Founding Director of Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics and held this post for a decade, followed by 12 years as president of Agnes Scott College. Throughout her academic career, Kiss always remained strongly connected with the Rhodes community, mentoring applicants and serving for many years on selection committees for the Scholarship. In 2018, she became Warden of Rhodes House, the first woman to hold that position. During her tenure, the Trust has expanded its partnership programmes and grown the Rhodes Scholarship in constituencies across the world, while Rhodes House itself has undergone an award-winning programme of redevelopment. Kiss stepped down from the Wardenship in 2024, describing her time at the Rhodes Trust as ‘a tremendous honour’.

This narrative is excerpted from an interview with the Rhodes Trust on 17 March 2025.

‘I grew up in a classic New York immigrant community’

I was born in Queens and grew up in the Bronx, but my family were refugees from Hungary. My parents and two older sisters had fled in 1956 and I was the American kid born five years later. My father had had the distinction of being a political prisoner under both the Nazis and the Communists. He’d been in the Resistance in the 1940s and then, after the war, became a rising star in politics. But then he was imprisoned by the Soviets, and when he was released, he was blacklisted. So, my family had this whole experience of standing up for their values and having their life change dramatically as a result. That history had an incredible influence on me.

I grew up in a classic New York immigrant community and Hungarian was my first language. New York City was an amazing place to be in the 1960s. There was so much that you could do for free, the museums and the zoo and Shakespeare in the Park. I started off at public school in New York City, which was an early education in being comfortable in a very, very diverse community. Then, just before I was due to go to middle school, we moved to Northern Virginia and suddenly, it was the South. I got admitted to a Fairfax County public middle school gifted programme which I loved, because it was so challenging.

On applying for the Rhodes Scholarship

I knew I didn’t want to go to the University of Virginia or Virginia Tech, because everybody from my high school went there. Instead, I discovered Davidson College, actually by pure serendipity. One day, I missed the bus home from school and had to kill time in the guidance office, and I found a brochure for a scholarship programme at Davidson.

In college, I fell in love with philosophy. I also started to get really involved in human rights activism, and I helped establish Davidson College’s Amnesty International chapter. It was a way I felt I could bring thinking about the wider world onto campus, and it was also a great source of like-hearted friends. I was editor of the student newspaper too, and I felt very strongly about free speech and freedom of assembly. I actually helped organise for a group of us to go to Washington, DC to participate in a protest march.

I was in my sophomore year when the Registrar of Davidson said he thought I should consider applying for the Rhodes Scholarship. I wasn’t really thinking about anything like that, because a lot had happened in my life while I was at college. My father and sister had both died suddenly, in car accidents. But my mother was really supportive about my going to Oxford because she knew that I wanted to study philosophy and Oxford was an incredible place to do that. So, I tried for the Rhodes, and I was lucky enough to get it. There were some tough questions at the interviews, but it was great to be in that room with those seven distinguished selection committee members and say, ‘Okay, I’m just going to be myself.’

‘Oxford certainly does throw you in the deep end’

Being at Oxford was a glorious combination of fun and travel and sports teams and wonderful friends. In the spirit of trying something new, I got into rowing, and it was so fun. I was probably the fittest I’ve been in my life! I also got to travel. I went to Nepal, and I organised a trip to Hungary with a group of friends, including my now husband, Jeff Holzgrefe. I kept up my involvement in human rights too, setting up a collegiate chapter of Minority Rights Group. A group of us even organised a conference on human rights, with money from George Soros and the Open Society Foundation.

Academically, Oxford certainly does throw you in the deep end. I remember saying to my tutor, Alan Ryan, ‘How do I prepare for this paper that I’m going to be examined on in two years?’ and he said, ‘Well, you just read a lot of books and write some essays about them.’ And what remains so wonderful about Oxford is its cross-disciplinary community, and being exposed to some of the leading thinkers in the world. It took me a while to fully grasp what an extraordinary intellectual training that was.

‘I just had the opportunity to understand how to make things happen in the academy’

Going into my graduate education, I wasn’t necessarily thinking I’d be an academic. I’d thought that I might go and work for something like Amnesty International. But in the course of being at Oxford one of the things I discovered was that I enjoyed teaching, because I was teaching English as a second language. And I got an incredible break, because one of my professors from Davidson reached out and asked whether I wanted to be a visiting instructor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland where he was working at that time. I loved it, and I just fell even deeper in love with teaching. So, I applied for a bunch of academic jobs in philosophy, including one at Princeton, which I didn’t get. But then, I got a call from Princeton saying my file had been sent over to the politics department, and could I come for any interview? I got the job, but meanwhile, my husband Jeff had landed an international relations job at St Andrew’s, so, we faced the two-body problem that so many academic couples have. I’m forever grateful that he agreed to come to the States, and he’s continued to teach in all the various places we’ve been.

I went on to serve as the Founding Director of Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics, and that was a very big pivot for me. I had the chance to be a kind of academic entrepreneur. They took a huge leap of faith in appointing me at that point in my career, and it was my first experience working with diverse stakeholders and fundraising. I was very proud of the things we did there, including creating an undergraduate ethics minor and working with the local community to develop ethics codes for businesses. All in all, I just had the opportunity to understand how to make things happen in the academy.

My next leadership position, at Agnes Scott College, was quite different. I was drawn to Agnes Scott because of its mission statement, to educate women to think deeply, live honourably and engage in the intellectual and social challenges of their time. I thought, ‘This is incredible.’ My role ranged across everything from admissions to looking after the physical plant to liaising with alums. It was an amazing journey. I feel that my real legacy there was to work with others to develop a signature programme for all students, Summit, focused on global learning and leadership development. It was a way to make Agnes Scott more attractive to prospective students and more sustainable for the longer term, and it worked.

‘Those moments of vulnerability and honesty and love and community’

I’d just announced that I was leaving Agnes Scott when I came over to Oxford for the 40th anniversary of Rhodes women. At that time, Charles Conn (Massachusetts & Balliol 1983) was Warden of Rhodes House and it was very exciting seeing what he’d done to make Rhodes House such a vibrant gathering place for Scholars. So, when Charles said he was stepping down, I decided to throw my hat in the ring. After all, as Jeff pointed out, the Rhodes Scholarship stands for the same values as Summit – only ‘on steroids’!

One of the best things about coming to Rhodes House as Warden was realising from the get-go that I could just be myself. I loved getting to know the Scholars in Residence and the Alumni and the staff. One of the parts of the role that was especially interesting was working on the partnership programmes with Schmidt Science Fellows and Mandela Rhodes and the Atlantic Institute. I really got to put that entrepreneurial side of me into practice. I feel like the particular role I’ve played as Warden is in creating space for conversation, especially around inclusion and engagement. And I think what will stay with me are those moments of vulnerability and honesty and love and community that happened as part of the Character, Service and Leadership Programme. That’s something I wish Scholars across the generations had been able to experience.

Share this article

Back