UF’s first Rhodes Scholar since 2000, and the first UF woman selected for the honor, is also a first-generation student from a tiny Florida town.

by David Finnerty

Up in north Florida, nestled on the banks of the Suwannee River, is the town of Branford: population 711 at last count. It’s the region’s “big town” — home to one of the county’s two high schools, a catfish festival and some of Mother Nature’s clearest springs.

Just over 4,200 miles and an ocean away is Oxford, England. It’s an old city — the place of epic battles, castles and medieval colleges, pubs and cricket and afternoon tea.

Branford and Oxford might seem as dissimilar as a linebacker and a ballerina, but there is a common denominator: Aimee Clesi.

Clesi (BA ’22) — the homegrown Florida girl who was an academic star at Branford High and stocked produce at Harvey’s Supermarket and Winn-Dixie to save for college — is moving to England in a few months to attend Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. She’s UF’s first since 2000, the first UF woman and the 13th Gator overall selected for the prestigious scholarship.

It also puts her in the company of “people standing up for the world,” says Andrew Banks (BA ’76), himself a Rhodes Scholar in the 1970s. Recipients include Nobel and Pulitzer prizewinners, a U.S. president, prime ministers, Supreme Court justices, academicians, authors and artists, leaders of organizations like Greenpeace and Amnesty International and Oxfam International, and some of the greatest scientists who’ve ever lived — thinkers and doers like Bill Clinton, astronomer Edwin Hubble, penicillin discoverer Howard Florey, United Nations ambassador Susan Rice and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

It’s a tough club to get into. In America alone, a couple thousand of academia’s best and brightest students apply to be selected Rhodes Scholars each year. Less than 1% make the cut. For Clesi — as the first in her family to earn a college degree — the odds, at times, seemed even more daunting.

Aimee Clesi and her twin, Erika, grew up in rural North Florida, and together attended UF and traveled to England for a study abroad program. PHOTO COURTESTY OF Aimee Clesi

“Being awarded the Rhodes and having the opportunity to live in Oxford has been such a life surprise,” she says. “When I applied, I poured my heart and soul into my application and interview, but I don’t think it crossed my mind too much what would happen if I was successful. I was more concerned about Plan B.”

Fate, not to mention Clesi’s fortitude, weren’t about to let the chance to be a Rhodes Scholar slip through her fingers. Not when she was that close. Not when the journey had been so long and so difficult. Not when just getting to UF for classes from her home in rural Suwanee County meant spending an hour in the car every day, and another hour back. Not when keeping student debt at arm’s length had meant working weekends at grocery stores.

Besides all that, Clesi’s time at UF shined. A double-major in philosophy and history, she was a Bob Graham Center fellow to the Supreme Court of Florida, a Reubin Askew Scholar, a Haskell Faculty and Student Fellowship Award winner, holder of several scholarships and so much more. For those accomplishments, she points directly to her part-time jobs at Winn-Dixie and Harvey’s.

“I worked in every department in the grocery store — including meat, frozen and produce — and this taught me how to work well with others, lead a team and be a team member, provide exceptional customer service, and most importantly, balance my work with going to school,” she explains.

Clesi’s UF Honors thesis focuses on racial disparities in death penalty sentencing. She plans on earning a doctorate in law at Oxford, with the eventual goal of helping wrongfully convicted people and ending the death penalty. The Rhodes Scholarship — which provides all expenses for two or three years at Oxford — began in 1903 and is the oldest and most prominent graduate standing scholarship program in the world.

Banks, former chairman and co-founder of the equity investment firm ABRY Partners and one of UF’s most generous philanthropists, caught up with Clesi this winter.