BERMUDA'S new Rhodes Scholar Jay Butler was the subject of an effusive pen portrait in the Harvard Crimson this week, campus newspaper of the Ivy League university he graduates from later this year.Oxford-bound Jay was lauded by Crimson staff writer Emily Lind as both an academic powerhouse and a talented and versatile musician — although the student newspaper did jokingly take him to task about his time-keeping.

"When he goes to England this coming fall to study at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, the biggest worry for Jay A.H. Butler will probably be whether he is on time for his flight," reported the Crimson.

"The recently announced international Rhodes Scholar from Bermuda admitted laughingly that he was a little bit late for his Rhodes Scholar interview in Bermuda over Thanksgiving break.

"But this Harvard senior's tardiness did not faze the selection committee.

Jay was the only Harvard undergraduate to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship this year. While Rhodes Scholars from the United States were announced in November 2005, the international Rhodes Scholars were not revealed until this month.

"Butler is the first Harvard student to be named a Bermuda Rhodes Scholar since Christina E. Storey (who graduated in 1993) received the honour," reported the Crimson.

According to John C.R. Collis, secretary of the Bermuda Rhodes Scholarship selection committee, the selection process in Bermuda is similar to the one used in the United States.

"The candidates need to have very strong academics, as well as be compatible with all Rhodes criteria," Me. Collis told the Crimson.

Mr. Collis also noted that although all of the candidates have studied at universities in the United States, Canada, or Great Britain, the Bermuda committee requires that candidates are citizens of Bermuda and have completed at laeast five years of schooling in Bermuda.

"A history specialist in Eliot House, Butler is expected to graduate in June with honors," reported the Crimson. "His field of specialisation is 19th-century Bermuda and he is writing a thesis on two prominent families from the era.

"Butler said he is using the families as a 'microcosm to study the meaning of freedom and race relations' in Bermuda during that time period."

Jay spent last summer in London and Bermuda doing research for his thesis, and over the summer of 2004 he travelled to India under the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies Summer Internship Grant.

There, he worked with the South Asian Human Rights Documentation Center, an NGO in New Delhi.

"Butler may be an academic force with a dedication to his thesis, but in typical Rhodes fashion, he is no bookworm," said the Crimson. "He has sung with the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College almost continuously since his freshman fall. He also played violin with the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra and volunteers regularly at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. Butler was named a Harvard College Scholar for 2003-2004 and 2004-2005."

He plans to study Jurisprudence at Exeter College at Oxford.

"I knew I wanted to study law in England and valued the small tutorial system at Oxford," he told the Crimson.

Though it was his interest in human rights that pushed him in the direction of law, he says he has received most of his intellectual motivation from members of the History department at Harvard.

He credits his two thesis advisors as "intellectual inspiration" for him. "I was constantly being pushed and challenged," Butler said.

Although he says he never explicitly aimed for a Rhodes Scholarship, Butler was aware of the opportunity and looked upon a Rhodes as "always something that was there, something to reach for."

The original Rhodes Scholarship was established in 1902 by Cecil John Rhodes for the purpose of bringing the most promising students in the English-speaking world to study at Oxford. Now, almost one hundred international Rhodes Scholarships are awarded annually. Bermuda is allowed to select one scholar each year.

[bul]Jay is the son of Community & Cultural Affairs Minister Dale Butler and Dr. June Hill. His maternal grandmother is distinguished Bermudian educator and pioneering civil rights activist Mrs. Georgina Hill.