Liza Lee poses for a photo in a fifth-grade language arts class at the Hockaday School in 1997.
Karen Stallwood/107224
Liza Lee held her students — her “girls” — to a high standard.
If you were chewing gum, she’d stick out her hand, then ask you to spit it out. If you were smoking, she’d relate her own experiences as a smoker, then ask you to stop.
The former headmistress of The Hockaday School expected a lot, family members and alumni recalled. But those expectations were matched by a commitment to champion, care and support young women, they said.
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“She was strict,” said her son Ted Lee. “She was, but in an absolutely loving way, where you always knew that she was kind of right about everything.”
Lee died on Sept. 12 at William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital in Dallas. She was 83.
Hockaday is regarded as the premier all-girl’s preparatory school in the southwest. Recent graduates have gone on to attend the country’s most elite colleges, including Harvard University, Stanford University and Yale University.
Liza Lee is pictured with her dog, Austin.
Courtesy of William Lee.
Liza Lee with Laura Leathers, Hockaday’s current head of school.
Courtesy of William Lee.
Headmaster of Hockaday Liza Lee talks with fourth graders on their way to French class on the first day of school on Aug. 27, 1997. Students are Michelle Wong (from left), Caroline Straty, Kristina Swygert, Joanna Elmquist, and Jacquelyn Kulp.
The Dallas Morning News/File Photo
Headmaster of Hockaday school Liza Lee meets with members of her student advisory board in her office on the first day of school on Aug. 27, 1997. Students are (clockwise from left) Kennedy Prentiss, Callie Works-Leary, Hilary Youngblood, Raha Talebi, Faye Bowles, Natalie Bayoud, and C.C. Marsh.
The Dallas Morning News/File Photo
ORG XMIT: [NHP_27LizaLee] Caption: 08/27/97 Headmaster of Hockaday Liza Lee greets students in the hall on the first day of school at the all-girls private school in North Dallas. Photographer: Karen Stallwood Credit: 107224 City: 107224 Date: 19970829 ObjectName: NHP_27LizaLee Source: High Profile
Karen Stallwood/107224
Liza Lee gets a hug from Jeanie Laube, director of Hockaday’s community service program, in October 2003.
The Dallas Morning News/File Photo
Elizabeth “Liza” Lee, as headmistress, was credited with helping to land The Hockaday School on the national map.
The Lee family
Lee served as Hockaday’s headmistress from 1990 to 2004 and returned as interim headmistress from 2015 to 2017. During her tenure, she raised the school’s endowment from $20 million to $90 million, according to a 2005 Texas Monthly article. The school’s diversity rate increased from 17% to 24%. She also modernized its science, math, technology, arts and engineering curriculum.
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“She was hired because she seemed to respect the traditions of the past, which are very important to Hockaday, but she also has very much a progressive view of women’s roles in contemporary society,” said Linda Custard, the former chairwoman of Hockaday’s board, in a 1997 Dallas Morning News article.
Sitting at the helm of this prestigious institution is no easy task. It comes with a lofty list of responsibilities: handling anxious parents, bringing in the bucks, and preparing the school for the future.
But Lee seemed to have cracked the code. She helped put Hockaday on the national map.
Liza Lee visits a student in class, while making her weekly Friday morning rounds of the lower school in 2003.
KIM RITZENTHALER/Dallas Morning News
In a statement, Laura Leathers, the current head of school, said Lee was always available to call, meet for lunch and provide perspective.
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Sonya Mirbagheri Cheney, who graduated in 2000, described Lee as the “heart and soul” of Hockaday. Each student had a unique and lifelong relationship with their head of school, she said.
“She knew your family. She knew what you were struggling with. She knew what you were capable of,” Mirbagheri Cheney said. “She was able to do that for so many.”
Lee’s love and support followed her wherever she went — from college, to law school, and onward, she said. When Mirbagheri Cheney lived in New York, she called Lee for advice on preschools for her daughter.
No matter how many years passed, she said, Lee would answer.
“The constancy of her in my life from a young eight-year-old girl until now is one of the most remarkable things,” she said.
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Once Hockaday’s student body president, Mirbagheri Cheney is now a full-time attorney and teaches at Stanford Law School. She admires the qualities that made Lee the educator she was — notably her “tremendous strength and incredible warmth.”
“[I want] the law students to believe there is no limit to what they can do,” she said. “Hold them to high standards, but do it with that love and support [like] she always did.”
Lee grew up in New York City and attended two all-girls schools, graduating from the Brearley School in 1961. She received her bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College and earned a Master of Arts from Columbia University.
She spent more than 20 years at her alma mater, the Brearley School, teaching and eventually leading its middle school.
“I think her mentors recognized something in her that needed to come out and it did,” William Lee, her husband, said about her transition from teacher to school administrator.
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Her career brought her to schools across the country. Lee also led the Columbus School for Girls in Ohio, the Trinity Episcopal School in Austin, Porter-Gaud School and the College Preparatory School in Charleston. She helped establish Dallas ISD’s Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School, the first all-girls public school in Texas.
For Lee, a ninth-generation New Yorker, Dallas became home. The family found a community that welcomed them.
“Dallasites are proud of Dallas,” Lee’s husband said. “We haven’t found another city like it.”
At one point, the Brearley School considered Lee for headmistress, but she decided to stay at Hockaday, The News reported in 1997. “They couldn’t offer me what I have in Dallas, and I don’t mean financially,” she said then.
Outside her job, Lee read prolifically, her family said. Her two sons, who are food journalists, noted her appetite for all kinds of cuisine — especially sushi.
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“She far preferred to eat off someone else’s plate than eat her own,” said her son, Matt Lee.
Don’t let his mom’s small frame fool you, he added.
“She just exploded into the room,” he said. “People always remarked on just what a dynamo she was.”
She is survived by her husband (William); her three children (Ted, Matt and Caroline); and five grandchildren (Arthur, Lorenzo, George, Ellie, and Henry). A memorial will be held Oct. 3 at 2 p.m. at Hockaday.
The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.
The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from Bobby and Lottye Lyle, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Garrett and Cecilia Boone, Judy and Jim Gibbs, The Meadows Foundation, The Murrell Foundation, Ron Steinhart, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University, Sydney Smith Hicks, and the University of Texas at Dallas. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.