Jon Butler

Howard R. Lamar Professor of American Studies, History and Religious Studies 

Jon Butler, B.A., M.A, and Ph.D., University of Minnesota, member of the Yale faculty since 1985: As a scholar you have been innovative on many fronts, demonstrating a winning and generative contrarian strain that queries all of the “givens” of history writing. This was most apparent when you challenged the taken-for-granted historical narratives of the “Great Awakening,” and—leaving a thousand new questions in your wake—had the aplomb to ask, really? Are we sure it occurred? You also led the scholarly move away from colonial New England to the Middle Colonies and the South, changing the way generations will understand the terrain of early American history. Awash in a Sea of Faith and Becoming America continue to repay as much attention as one gives them; your intellectual contribution will endure for many years to come. 

But despite your productivity and your impressive, award-laden record as a scholar, you still reserved the time to make yourself indispensable to your colleagues and students at this institution, becoming no less than legendary as a mentor to undergraduates, graduate students, and your junior colleagues alike. With tremendous generosity of time and counsel, with an unerring compass, with a cool head and a steady hand, and with truly rare measures of wisdom and ardor, you led three different departments and finally, as Dean, the Yale Graduate School itself. While you are widely admired for your scholarship and for many significant administrative and institutional achievements, including the freshman seminar program and the Pew Scholars Program on Religion and American Society, you are perhaps most loved and revered at Yale for your style as a citizen, mentor, colleague, and leader. “Character,” “unwavering principle,” “caring,” “devotion,” and “wisdom” are the words that surface again and again in reference to your work in many different capacities at Yale. You showed those around you how to navigate the profession—how to inhabit it genuinely and with the strength of conviction, how to give oneself over to it without ever losing one’s bearing or one’s voice. You have been a unique model; we are all your students.