"He's very idealistic. A lot of people at Harvard can get pretty cynical," Willis says. "He's not like that at all."

"He's just bonkers about the environment," Misra adds.

Council as Turtle

Rhew's passion for nature has even found its way into his political rhetoric in the Undergraduate Council.

In his speech for council chair earlier this semester, Rhew recounted a tale of a turtle climbing up a set of stairs. The turtle, he said, got tired and couldn't go any further. "Don't let the UC be that stubborn old turtle," Rhew told the council. "It's time to take a breath of fresh air."

That speech is also representative of what relatives and friends call Rhew's "unique" sense of humor.

"He has a strange sense of humor sometimes," muses Kathy Rhew. "He's really witty, but sometimes his jokes don't make sense to anyone except for him."

Rhew's sense of humor, Leitch says, "can be very dry, it's spontaneous, it's unpredictable. I hope it comes through in the UC."

The challenges of a new term and a brand-new executive board may not leave Rhew with much to laugh about, but the former services committee chair is used to working hard for the council.

"When I was a freshman, I never thought of running for chair," he says. "I spent a lot of time on making the council work, trying to promote its image in the undergraduate body, so I assumed roles and responsibilities that other people weren't going to take."

This semester will be Rhew's sixth on the council, and his third on the executive board.

"I used to laugh at him for spending so much time at UC," says Misra, who is the council's newly-elected finance chair.

Rhew encouraged Misra himself to run for the council last year.

"I ran because I thought that if he spent so much time on the UC, it's got to be worthwhile. If I hadn't talked to him about running, I never would have run. He convinced me. He's the catalyst, he's the swing factor."

And this term, Rhew suggested that his roommate try for a position on the executive board.

"He convinced me to run for finance chair," Misra says. "I didn't want to run until the night before [the election]."

Rhew says he ran for chair because he felt the council needed someone to work during the summer, and because he felt he had the leadership abilities to improve the council's faltering image and attitude.

Says Rhew, "The UC is something I put so much time into, I would hate to see it go down the drain."