Well, I met a lot of my best friends at King’s, but this friend, I had a feeling I would keep for a lifetime. We would sit in the lions den for hours talking about Shakespeare, philosophy, God, the nature of dating. When we started to date, I would go over to his apartment on Saturday mornings just to hear what big ideas were circulating. His apartment was truly a microcosm of the best of King’s, discussing philosophy and politics of the world, and then asking out how can we go this virtuously. I am now married to this guy, and despite what people say about the dating culture at King’s (I know I got lucky), love, deep love, really can be found at The King’s College because the culture of King’s seeks to know PEOPLE intimately and understand IDEAS personally. As an institution King’s strives to be excellent because that is how we can best love people: pursuing excellence in virtue.

I have many other love-based relationships at King’s. I chose my freshman year roommate purely because I knew she loves Jane Austen, and it turned out to be helpful criteria because she was the maid of honor at my wedding this past summer. She’s without a doubt the cynical Lizzie to my Jane.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out what I think are the most critical relationships at King’s, which is our professor’s love for their students. Dr Bleatter pours his heart into his MET tours. Sure he also just loves the MET, but he takes pride when students light up about art. Dr. Griffith teaches us about “thumos” and that is is good and right to be passionate when oriented toward good things in a measured way. Dr. Blander, Dr. Brand, and Dr. Talcott’s bromance based on a love for the good is so special. Even though these professors would still be phenomenal and doing the Lord’s work at other institutions, they are so beautiful unified under a vision to see students succeed, and they define success by a genuine love for the Lord and rich in character, not only influencing institutions, but it is the desire to honor God that leads so many King’s graduates to do such culture changing jobs.

I know I’m largely rambling. I promise King’s taught me to write more professionally than this! I am so passionate and overwhelmed by the good this institution has done in my life, but let me leave you with one last story. This past Monday there as an eery feeling in our classroom as someone brought up the financial state of the school. My professor gave twenty minutes of class time to let people air their grievances, then acknowledge the weight of the situation, and said, and this is why we study what we are studying: character building (August, Origen, Gregory the Great, Aquinas). The professor after the class reminded that any of us are welcome to office hours, and a few classes before challenged us to hold our professor’s to King’s standard of care for classes, just as students still care. What we study at King’s is so important to being smart, wise and excellent, but also it prepares us to overcome hardships with character. That is why our professors stop class to talk about real life hardship and why our classes and even assignments cause us to reflect.

There truly is no place quite as special and quite as worth of longevity as King’s. Our job as students is to continue in steadfastness, prayer, hope and love.