Lisette Nieves grew up in New York and studied at Brooklyn College before going to Oxford to read for a second undergraduate degree in PPE. Returning to the US, she took her MPA at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and her doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania before beginning her career in education and education management. Nieves has worked as a public sector leader, entrepreneur and scholar across many institutions, including the municipal and federal government. She served as an Obama appointee on the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, where she co-chaired the higher education subcommittee. She is currently the President of the Fund for the City of New York which works to develop innovation and advance the functioning of government and nonprofits. Nieves serves on numerous boards, including for the Edwin Gould Foundation, Jobs for the Future and Propel America. Her most recent publication, co-authored with Noel S. Anderson, is Working to Learn: Disrupting the Divide between College and Career Pathways for Young People. This narrative is excerpted from an interview with the Rhodes Trust in November 2024.
Lisette Nieves
New York & Corpus Christi 1992
‘I loved where reading would take me’
I came from a working- class family and I learned very early on that I didn’t want to be a debit on the accounting sheet at the end of the day. That sounds harming, but it wasn’t harming. It was just a real understanding around what it means to be class- and money-conscious, and I was very aware of that in my family. I’m fortunate, because I was loved dearly, and I’m grateful for that.
I was always a curious and adventurous child. I loved learning and I was grateful that we had books in our home. I loved where reading would take me. It was a place that gave me safety, security, a sense of escape, a sense of adventure. Devouring a book would anchor me in a way that was really important. I also did community service one day out of four at my high school. I spent time as a friendly visitor to senior citizens and I also worked with young people who were in special education. I felt they were hungry to do more than the expectations for them and I never forgot that.
I was a really bright student. Once, I did extremely well on a test and the school called my parents in because they thought I had probably cheated. I was devastated. I lived for learning and I just remember going through the rest of that school years taking so many notes, because no one was ever going to accuse me of cheating again. And yet, there were positive moments too. I remember there was a course that I was frustrated with and I just stopped going. The teacher called me in and said, ‘You’re a good student. You know that, right?’ And there was no judging, no labelling, and I went back and I did well in the class. He could have written me off, but he didn’t.
On applying for the Rhodes Scholarship
After high school, I took a gap year. I wanted to go to college but I wanted to make sure it was paid for. Debt at that time, particularly for Latinos, was seen as burdensome to a whole family. I served in the NYC Service Civic Corps and I worked on an AIDS ward for six months, at the height of the AIDS crisis. I saw dozens of people die and it was tragic because I really understood, systemically, what it meant to be marginalised. I also got to experience frontline care providers who cared deeply. I learned what dignity meant, how you could have humour even at the end of life. That was very profound for me.
I was a first-generation college student and I went to a local college, Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York. I never thought I’d ever be a Rhodes Scholar. What I did know was that I wanted to get my schooling covered financially. So, I saw something that said ‘$30,000 Truman Scholarship’ and I was, like, ‘Wow, I’m going to apply for that.’ And I went to apply and someone said, ‘Don’t do that. They never take us.’ But there were faculty who agreed to write recommendations for me, and I went ahead and applied.
It was actually the head of the Truman who said, ‘You need to apply for a Rhodes.’ My school said, ‘You’re not in the honors program. They’re not going to accept you.’ But again, there were a couple of faculty who had said they would write my recommendations, so I said, ‘I have recommendations.’ And then, I was selected. I have to say I was surprised, because back then I was applying in one of the most competitive regions, alongside lots of Ivy League students. Once you receive the Rhodes, it’s like you become an overnight celebrity, which was crazy. All these senior citizens who didn’t know me were putting, like, five dollars in envelopes and sending them to me, saying, ‘This is for the books. You make us so proud.’ I was just so moved by that.
‘It was an interesting mix’
In my class of Rhodes Scholars, I think I was one of only two whose parents did not go to college. I was the only Latino of my year too, and there were only nine women in my class. So, it was a really interesting thing, because I was very conscious of class, not just with the Brits, but with the US students as well.
I don’t think I necessarily have all positive memories of being in Oxford. I didn’t feel Rhodes House was my place. It was somewhere I went for the big photo of my class and for maybe one other event each year. And then, when it comes to Rhodes House, we just have to talk about colonial history, you know? I think Rhodes House is much more welcoming now. Seeing it today and remembering it when I was there, it’s like night and day.
There were moments when I felt hyper-racialised, and there were also moments that I felt good. It was an interesting mix. I was in a small college where I was one of the few Americans, and I absolutely loved that part. Some of my tutors were okay. Some I would put into what I can only call a kind of misogynist category. I did have a great advisor, Professor Hornsby, and I do just want to shout her out. We talked and she said, ‘You’re very different and you’re not going to feel like you fit in here, but I’m really glad you’re here.’ I just appreciated that. She saw me, and she saw that I was different, and that different wasn’t necessarily bad.
‘We have a responsibility to bring in voices’
I always say that if you accept the binaries, you will never be free. So, I’m grateful, but I’m also deserving, and I believe we can have both. People are going to have all kinds of rationalisations for stuff, particularly when it comes to those from under-represented groups. You can’t control that and you can’t let that drive your narrative. I remember working with this one gentleman who was wonderful. I was having a tension professionally around something. He was an African American and he said to me, ‘You know, what you need to own is that you are the only damn one who has done this and you don’t owe anybody, and you need to claim it.’ That just released a level of freedom for me.
My curiosity is multi-dimensional, multi-textual, and I need a variety of things to keep me engaged. I think that intellectual endeavour is not just for the academy. Contributions to what is seen as knowledge have been policed and racialised and class-biased and linguistically biased. For anybody who wants to be inclusive, we have a responsibility to bring in voices.
I have a couple of pet peeves, and one is people who say they don’t have power. I distrust that. I’m really conscious of the power in the room, the role that I have, and I’m clear that decisions that I make can impact people. So, I think acting like you don’t have power, that’s BS. I get to take home a salary because I make those decisions, and that’s what leadership means. People don’t usually say ‘No’ when I ask them to do something. They trust me, and they trust that I’m going to put them in a place that respects them and we’re going to move forward. People are counting on me to do the right thing.
‘It’s important to know what feeds you’
To today’s Rhodes Scholars, I would say, the Scholarship is a moment in your life. It is not your life, it’s a life-changing moment, and you have to decide how you want to leverage it. You can view the world through multiple lenses. Don’t ever let someone be reductionist about you and say that you have a single lens. We want to do that all the time: ‘You’re a Rhodes Scholar’ or ‘You’re an entrepreneur’ or ‘You’re a policymaker.’ I actually think that we’re much more integrated as humans and some of us need that to thrive. It’s important to know what feeds you.