Dr. David J. Rothman
Greetings to the trustees of John Adams College, to the faculty and staff, to the current students, alumni, donors, all other stakeholders and friends of the school, and especially to you, the graduating class of 2026, and to your family and friends. Thank you for inviting me to speak at this momentous occasion, this commencement, this beginning, this moment of unrivaled hope in your young lives. It is an honor I will try to spend a few minutes to be worthy of, though not too many minutes, as I know I stand between you and the refreshments.
Why are we here? To begin with, we should recognize what we are doing. This kind of event has quite a history. Academia, properly speaking, is less a profession or any kind of modern industry than it is the last surviving medieval guild. If you think that’s an exaggeration, look around you and consider the fact that we are all dressed in 12th-century clothing, in a style that predates even the judicial robes by several hundred years.
We are here, in this formal setting, wearing these formal clothes, to step into a very long tradition by which the faculty of this institution induct you, the graduates, into the company of educated men and women. That is a high calling and a worthy one, for you are joining the universitas magistororum et scholarium, the collective self-governing corporation of teachers and scholars. The word universitas in this phrase is the source of the modern word “university.” Many think it stands for the study of universal ideas, but in fact it was and remains a term of guild licensure, denoting universal membership of all qualified and certified members in the guild of teachers and scholars. Being admitted to the universitas is literally a matter of being awarded a license, not of embracing an idea. And that use of the term universitas is far older than the medieval guilds and universities, dating back to its codification in Roman law under the emperor Justinian in the mid-sixth century AD, when it referred to all sorts of non-educational guilds or corporations.
So, again, welcome to the ancient universal guild of teachers and scholars. You have earned your license; you have earned the privilege of wearing these ancient robes.
How do you earn this privilege? In the case of this wonderful college, and to quote its guiding principles, it is the determination of the faculty that you have earned admission into the guild because you have succeeded in preparing yourselves to apply the wisdom of the past to the problems of today and tomorrow, and to promote liberty through virtue.
In a long and careful process, the faculty has judged each of you capable to understand, deeply and personally, that human progress is driven not by consensus, but by courageous thinkers willing to ask difficult questions. You have been educated not only in the traditions of study, but also how to encounter the unknown. You have learned the conventions of the past in order to imagine the non-conventional. Your learning is liberal in the broadest sense, acquired Socratically rather than by a dogmatic script. Facing enormous intellectual demands, you have learned to think for yourselves.
All of this is fitting and appropriate. You deserve this honor and we hope you will fulfill the promise of these high ideas.
But then . . . why am I here? Your work at this level is done and the work of the faculty is done. I am here only to help send you on your way with some kind of final inspiration.
So, what can I add? It is common in such circumstances to talk about going forth to meet the challenges of a changing world; about having the courage of your convictions and maintaining your integrity when circumstances will seek to compromise both in ways you may not yet be able to imagine (and believe me, that temptation will come); about remembering to sustain your faith, not despite your doubt but rather by confronting it; about going into plastics, or robotics, or politics, or hedge fund management, or AI, or medicine, or philanthropy; about fighting for justice; about solving the problems of the world, from hunger to war to disease to any number of other causes; about keeping service in mind as you pursue your own dreams. And so on.
All of these are worthy messages and goals, but to be blunt, easy enough to articulate and rather painfully obvious, so I am not going to talk about any of them. Rather, with the ambition of a poet, let me encourage you to do something I have never heard any other commencement speaker ever suggest, and that is not a common piece of advice in the classroom.
Here it is: Be a lover.
Be a lover.
Whatever you do, be a lover. More, be a good lover. And let me be clear, I mean both agape (selfless, unconditional, and sacrificial love) and eros (passionate, romantic love), all of it, which when combined pose no contradiction in our lives, at least when construed by poets rather than by philosophers. For to a poet, the unconditional, consistent, disciplined Apollonian love of agape can be aroused and elevated by the Dionysian passion of eros, just as the unruly passion of eros can be tempered by the civilizing power of agape. To live only by eros may be to go mad; but to deny eros is not fully to live.
I am not speaking of what has been called, for centuries and following St. Augustine, the caritas synthesis, in which both forms of love resolve in adoration of God. Instead, I want to suggest a poetic way of both being and becoming that accepts the contradictions of eros and agape as they actually appear in our lives, and seeks not to resolve those contradictions, but rather to harness them for our own good and for the good of others.
In this view, to be a lover is not a reconciliation–that is for philosophers–but rather a calling to embody a productive and irresolvable tension.
How so, you may rightly ask.
Let me be specific:
Work. Do not just do your work devotedly. Try also to find a way to love it. The best work is love made visible. Love your work. If you cannot find a way to love it, think about finding new work. Be a lover.
Patriotism. Do not be merely a dutiful citizen of our country, but seek to love it passionately, with all its flaws. America is a great and precious experiment in self-governance that not only requires us to uphold its revolutionary constitution, but also requires spirited defense of it. Freedom is not free. Love your country. Be a lover.
Friendship. Do not merely have friends. True friendship is far more than social convenience. True friendship can also require commitment and sacrifice. With love, friendship becomes an action, a verb. Befriend your friends. Tell them you love them. You may not know how much they need it. And then you will receive love in return. Be a lover.
Family. Love your family, even when they may be hard to love. Mine is at times. Ponder gratitude and forgiveness, which go beyond reason, and then find your way towards those actions in a rational way. Be a lover.
God. The necessary study of the divine can unwittingly turn it into an abstraction. Be careful of that. As Mark 12:30 and Matthew 22:37 instruct: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” No doubt there are theologians here who will contest what I have to say, but I would simply point out this passage doesn’t then suggest that you can’t also love people as well. Agape does not cancel eros. If it did, none of us would exist. We need both. What looks like a contradiction to some may not be one in the end. Be a lover.
Philosophy. Do not seek merely to understand the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is one thing to understand them, another also to love them. If the death of Cordelia does not strike you as an unsettling representation of evil, you have become indifferent. If Iago’s lies do not upset you, you are in danger. And if you don’t get a bit emotional at the end of Romeo and Juliet, you’re probably not paying attention. Be a lover.
Nature. It is necessary but not sufficient to admire our beautiful planet as viewed from the other side of the moon by Artemis II. Surely our awe at such a vision transcends mere orderly feeling. Let it flow. Be a lover.
Love, Actually. And now, the last one, the most unusual in this context. Love yourself and your erotic partner. Be a good lover. Be the best lover you can be. For if you are not, if you avoid this, you will pay a heavy price, a price the philosophers seem constitutionally unable to describe, let alone understand. As a great poet once wrote on this subject:
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life.
Whoever you love, pay attention and work hard to learn how to love them, to the point that a mere touch of the fingertips conjures magic, romance, and mystery, even after 20 years. This is harder than it looks. Ask your parents. Be a lover.
The rest of it. . . . Even in your spare time, do not settle for being merely entertained. Do not settle for mere enjoyment. Go also for delight, go for your portion of joy, go for the sweet core of life, even when sitting alone in an empty room. Be a lover.
Love, even passionate love, even eros, need not be tragically irrational. This college has given you the tools, the knowledge and skills to think. But love, both agape and eros, is the energy, the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, even when that green fuse is inarticulable and mortal. Learn to measure the passion of your love even in the throes of eros, and to inspire with fire the discipline of your attentive sympathy even when working the fields of agape, and your education will be transformed.
Being a lover is not easy. It is confusing and even dangerous. At times it will hurt. The root of “passion,” after all, is pathos, or suffering. And you will suffer. Trust me on this. But to coin a phrase, it is better to have lived and loved than never to have loved at all.
So welcome to the guild, to the company of educated men and women. Go forth and work. Go forth and serve. Go forth and lead.
But also remember to go forth with passion and delight and joy in your heart.
And be a lover, because if you are a lover, these two approaches are not contradictions, or rather, these contradictions pose no problem. They are the very stuff of life itself. Live the contradictions. Be a lover in every sense of the word.
That is my advice.
And now, congratulations. You’ve all done a great job and it’s a beautiful day. The world is waiting for you. Be a lover. Go get it.
~ In memoriam Gordon Jones
David J. Rothman is the author or editor of fifteen volumes of poetry, criticism, social science and sports writing. He has taught in a wide range of institutions, from community organizations to high schools, undergraduate institutions and graduate programs, including Western Colorado University, the University of Colorado, New York University, the University of Utah and even a few classes here at John Adams College. Having been kicked upstairs a number of times, he has also directed many arts and educational institutions, including a private, independent high school, a graduate program in creative writing, a music festival, an arts center, a scholarly organization, a number of journals and more. His greatest passion throughout has been poetry. He was also trained in social science by his own father, the social scientist Stanley Rothman. His most recent books are The Radio Poems, and a textbook, Learning the Secrets of English Verse, co-authored with Susan Spear. Over the last 40 years, his poems and essays have appeared in many of the best literary periodicals in the country and in scores of other newspapers, magazines, and journals. In 2025 he won the Frederick Turner Prize for Poetry, and in 2024 he won the Karen Chamberlain Lifetime Achievement Award for Poetry in Colorado. He has served on many boards, including the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers and has judged many poetry contests, such as the Frost Farm Prize and this year’s John Adams College Poetry Prize. He has consulted on nonprofit governance with dozens of arts, educational and athletic organizations, including John Adams College, which he believes is helping to keep the spirit of the liberal arts alive in America. John Adams College very much appreciates Dr. Rothman’s friendship and support.