A few hours before stepping onto the stage at Harvard's 2024 Convocation, Irvin Scott stood in quiet reflection. Not for applause, not for recognition, but because love—deep, radical love—had carried him to that moment. It was the kind of love that asked for nothing in return, that shaped his career from an English teacher in Pennsylvania to a faculty leader at Harvard Graduate School of Education. As he stood before the graduates, it wasn’t just an address; it was a calling to transform the soul of education itself.
Higher education is often framed through the lenses of academic prestige, job placement statistics, and research funding. But rarely do we speak openly, and with vulnerability, about love as its driving force. Not sentimental love, not romantic love, but a radical, transformative love—the kind that fuels a lifelong commitment to teaching, learning, and uplifting others. This form of love is rarely found in policy documents or institutional brochures, but its fingerprints are everywhere: in the extra office hour offered before a final exam, in the professor who refuses to give up on a struggling student, in the admissions officer who sees potential in a nontraditional applicant.
Radical love in education is a quiet revolution, a rebellion against the transactional mindset that has crept into our universities. In today’s elite academic circles, where tuition fees soar and rankings dominate conversations, it might seem unfashionable to talk about love. Yet this very concept may be what is missing in our efforts to restore meaning to the pursuit of higher learning.
Irvin Scott’s speech was more than a ceremonial performance; it was a testament to the lived experiences of so many educators who are quietly fighting for humanity in a system increasingly overtaken by metrics and bureaucracy. His words resonated because they were shaped by failure as much as success. Recounting his own rejection from Harvard’s doctoral program two decades prior, he reminded the graduates that resilience is born not in moments of triumph, but in the humbling aftermath of defeat. After receiving the rejection letter, he didn’t retreat. Instead, supported by his wife, a high school math teacher, he studied harder, improved his scores, and drove to Harvard to speak face-to-face with faculty. That persistence paid off with an acceptance letter that became a catalyst—not just for his own career, but for the countless lives he would later impact.
This kind of personal storytelling isn’t common at highbrow convocations. But that’s precisely why it matters. In elite education spaces, where resumes gleam and achievements are polished to perfection, it’s easy to forget that most meaningful impact begins with discomfort. True educational leadership requires not only credentials, but a willingness to show up vulnerable and invested, heart first.
Scott’s message landed at a time when higher education is undergoing seismic change. Post-pandemic campuses are grappling with new digital landscapes, economic uncertainty, political polarization, and growing student disengagement. Yet amid this turbulence, love—a word so often dismissed as soft or unacademic—emerges as a radical stabilizer. It calls educators and administrators to listen deeply, to serve inclusively, and to lead with humility.
Across the United States and the United Kingdom, universities are being asked to do more than produce graduates. They are expected to solve national labor shortages, close equity gaps, compete in global innovation races, and safeguard mental health—all while managing shrinking budgets and growing scrutiny. As institutions scale their online offerings, expand international partnerships, and chase high-value donor portfolios, they are at risk of overlooking the very thing that makes education transformational: relationships rooted in empathy, trust, and commitment.
In conversations with higher ed faculty across North America, a quiet frustration often simmers beneath the surface. Professors speak of being overwhelmed by performance evaluations and publication quotas. Students describe a sense of emotional isolation, even on campuses with glossy student life brochures. Behind the scenes, many institutions have quietly become transactional machines, designed to deliver outcomes, not transformation. And yet, tucked in classrooms, hallways, Zoom screens, and late-night email exchanges, radical love continues to pulse—unofficial, unmeasured, but undeniably real.
Scott’s phrase “radical listening” is particularly relevant here. Listening not just to respond or to be polite, but to understand, to be changed by what you hear. In a graduate seminar on educational policy in Cambridge last fall, a first-generation college student from the Bronx shared how her father, a janitor who never completed high school, taught her more about discipline than any textbook. The class fell silent. The professor didn’t jump in to redirect the conversation toward the syllabus. Instead, he asked her to say more. That moment—not the journal article they were reading—became the most talked-about lesson of the semester.
When radical listening becomes a pedagogical tool, classrooms transform into sanctuaries. In these spaces, students are not mere consumers of knowledge, but co-creators of meaning. They begin to see themselves not just as achievers, but as agents of change. Faculty, in turn, are liberated from the performance anxiety of always having the perfect answer and are freed to be facilitators of discovery and connection.
Radical love also demands moral clarity, particularly in an era where higher education is under ideological assault. Across Western democracies, from Florida to Hungary, university curricula are being scrutinized, censored, and politicized. In such moments, educational leaders cannot afford to remain neutral. Radical love insists on standing up for the marginalized, advocating for truth even when it is inconvenient, and ensuring that learning environments are inclusive and brave—not just safe.
But radical love isn’t just resistance; it is construction. It builds bridges between disciplines, between generations, between theory and practice. It’s the philosophy that inspired an Oxford fellow to spend his sabbatical running a mentorship program for refugee students in London. It’s what led a Harvard postdoc to co-create a mental health app with undergraduates, integrating AI and cognitive behavioral therapy to support students facing anxiety and depression. It’s what moved an administrator at Stanford to redesign scholarship criteria to better serve neurodiverse students. These aren’t just good deeds; they are blueprints for what higher education can become when love is embedded into its design.
We cannot talk about radical love without talking about equity. The financial barriers to elite education are still steep, even as universities trumpet diversity statistics. Tuition, housing, visa restrictions, and unpaid internships continue to widen the gap between those who can afford access and those who cannot. Radical love, in this context, calls for structural imagination. It asks institutions to move beyond token representation and toward systemic inclusion—rethinking admissions, funding, mentorship, and alumni networks so that success isn’t gated behind privilege.
What makes Scott’s message timeless is its refusal to separate intellect from emotion. Too often, we pretend these are separate domains—one for the mind, the other for the heart. But the most impactful educational experiences are those where intellect and emotion intersect. It’s what makes a legal theory course unforgettable. It’s what makes a neuroscience lecture relevant to lived experience. It’s what makes data science applicable to real-world justice.
Education, at its best, is a deeply human pursuit. That humanity must be protected—not only through policy, but through culture. Creating cultures of radical love requires intentional effort: mentoring relationships that outlast the semester, feedback that is generous rather than punitive, leadership that is transparent rather than transactional. It means modeling vulnerability in front of students, owning mistakes, and refusing to let cynicism take root.
As universities compete for global rankings and elite affiliations, they must remember that prestige is hollow if it is not animated by purpose. Radical love gives education that purpose. It reminds us that learning is not merely preparation for life; it is life. And every time a faculty member stays after class to console a grieving student, every time a financial aid officer advocates for an overlooked applicant, every time a university president makes equity a non-negotiable priority, radical love is in motion.
Scott’s story of rejection, redemption, and recommitment is not just his own. It’s the story of education itself—a field defined not by certainty, but by the courage to begin again. As higher education faces mounting pressures, perhaps its salvation won’t come from the next budget cycle or strategic plan, but from a deeper embrace of what it means to love radically, lead authentically, and learn courageously.
So as the class of 2024 walks across the stage, diploma in hand, they carry more than academic credentials. They carry the possibility of reshaping education—not through force, but through care; not with ego, but with empathy; not by playing it safe, but by loving radically and leading with purpose 🎓❤️