COLLEGEVILLE, Minnesota — Jervon Sands is a climate activist, poet, applied physicist major, Saint John's University graduate and now a Rhodes Scholar.
Sands, who graduated in May, is only the second alum in the college's history to be named a Rhodes Scholar and the first from SJU in more than 50 years.
The Rhodes Scholarship is one of the most prestigious in the world — a fully-funded postgraduate award that enables students the opportunity to study at the University of Oxford.
The acceptance rate for the scholarship is about 0.7%.
Sands, who is Bahamian, was one of 10 finalists in the Commonwealth Caribbean. In November, he and the other finalists interviewed in Barbados. Within an hour, Sands learned he would be receiving the honor.
"I remember just feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude. I think I literally just shook in place and started walking, not really in control of my body," Sands said.
Sands and about 100 other scholars across the world will start school in the fall of 2024.
"I was proud of myself because it had been a long journey. Five months after starting the application I was getting this announcement," Sands said. "So there was a lot of gratitude, a lot of feelings of being proud of myself, being grateful to the people who supported me throughout the application process."
Sands, an applied physics major, graduated earlier in the year and then spent the summer working at Yale University as part of the Yale Young Global Scholars program. He's now serving in the Benedictine Volunteer Corps, a one-year service opportunity offered to SJU graduates. Sands is currently serving in Puerto Rico.
"I am a substitute teacher and I coach a soccer team. I'm helping out the students in different club areas, making presentations," Sands said. "I just recently did a poetry workshop. We took students to donate gifts at the children's hospital."
But when Sands heads to the University of Oxford in the fall, his focus will be on climate justice — with the Bahamas in mind.
"One of the challenges we've been facing is accruing immense loss and damage through hurricanes and not having the opportunity to focus on climate adaptation because we are one of the lowest-lying island nations in the world," Sands said. "So we are really under threat from rising sea levels and climate adaptation is kind of the response we need to attend to that coming problem."
During Sands' two years at Oxford, he plans on doing two masters programs in environmental change and management and sustainability, enterprise and the environment.
After graduation, he plans on applying what he learned back at home.
"I think a lot of the work that I'm interested in is bringing more people into this work and trying to integrate our climate's response. So coming up with creative solutions that feature the perspectives of young people and people just in our country and our region," Sands said.
Sands is currently in town visiting campus. He also took part in Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis' visit to the College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's University on Monday.
More than 1,600 natives of the Bahamas have earned degrees from CSB+SJU, a testament to a relationship that has lasted more than 100 years.
"To meet so many prominent Bahamians and kind of feel as though I'm a part of both this legacy here at Saint Ben's and Saint John's, and the legacy of Bahamians... it was a really important experience for me."
According to SJU, the first Johnnie to become a Rhodes Scholar was Steven Michaud '67 in 1969. Women were not eligible to be Rhodes Scholars until 1977. Since then, two from CSB have earned the honor. Laura McGrane '91 in 1992 and Rachel Mullin '14 became a Rhodes Scholar in 2016.
Watch more Breaking The News:
Watch all of the latest stories from Breaking The News in our YouTube playlist:
WATCH MORE ON KARE 11+
Download the free KARE 11+ app for Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV and other smart TV platforms to watch more from KARE 11 anytime! The KARE 11+ app includes live streams of all of KARE 11's newscasts. You'll also find on-demand replays of newscasts; the latest from KARE 11 Investigates, Breaking the News and the Land of 10,000 Stories; exclusive programs like Verify and HeartThreads; and Minnesota sports talk from our partners at Locked On Minnesota.
- Add KARE 11+ on Roku here or by searching for KARE 11 in the Roku Channel Store.
- Add KARE 11+ on Fire TV here or by searching for KARE 11 in the Amazon App Store.
- Learn more about the KARE 11+ app for Apple TV in the Apple App Store.
- Learn more about KARE 11+ here.