I’ve read the 112-page Report of the Senate Committee on Ethics Concerning the Conduct of Senator Stanley C. Rosenberg.

I believe every word that Stan is reported to have said in that document. Stan lives his remark that, “The best way to win someone’s trust is to tell the truth; clearly, forcefully, directly.”

I have interacted with Stan on the floor of the UMass Faculty Senate and in private meetings that the Rules Committee has had with him and Ellen over the years. He did win my trust.

I haven’t always felt proud of who I voted for in various elections, but coming out of the polling booth after voting for Stan, I did feel proud. Always. If I had the opportunity to vote for him again today, I would again feel proud.

Much has been made of Stan’s making his passcode available to his partner and later spouse, Bryon Hefner. Stan said the only purpose for doing this was so that Hefner would have access to Stan’s busy schedule so that they could plan their activities. The ethics committee report indicates that sharing pass codes was a common practice even though against a Senate policy.

Eventually, Stan had to change his office’s practice of giving Hefner the latest pass code and found a different way to share his schedule. When Stan says he was unaware of Hefner’s other activities having to do with access to emails, I believe him.

The ethics report suggests Stan’s actions or failures to act have done harm to the Senate. I suggest that the only harm done to the Senate was depriving that body of the excellent leadership of a great public servant. The remaining harm was in depriving us of a great representative and the University of Massachusetts of a great legislative friend.

What to make of the scandal? I don’t know if Stan “lov’d not wisely but too well.” I do know, and have thought often of, how ready people are to throw one down from the stars into the mud for one slip, and how easily they forget their own slips while doing so.

Let’s remember Associated Press reporter Bob Salsberg’s enumeration of Stan’s commitment to working families, the environment, increasing government transparency, affordable education, his accessibility and responsiveness, his work against racial profiling and his fight to preserve legal same-sex marriage.

Let’s remember that it was no accident that he was unanimously elected President of the Massachusetts Senate and that it was based on a long history of remarkable public service.

As I write, I am looking at a list of Stan’s awards. The list has 52 awards. I would like to list them all here but lists don’t make good reading. Let me say the first on this list was in 1990, the last was in 2014.

He received the Legislator of the Year Award from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the UMass Student Government Association, all in different years.

I’ll mention a few more that especially appeal to me: The David Burres Memorial Civil Liberties Award, the Prevention of Violence Against Women Award, the Public Advocate of the Year Award from the Greater Boston Food Bank, and the Good Guys Award from the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus.

The women’s political caucus got it right. Stan is a “good guy” and we have benefited from this “good guy’s” public service for decades. The entire commonwealth has been so fortunate.

If you need a reminder of where Stan has stood for us and how various organizations have rated his voting, I refer you to Votesmart.org. My favorites are the 100 percent ratings from Planned Parenthood, the low ratings from the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, the zero ratings from the American Conservative Union, the very low ratings from Citizens for Limited Taxation and Government, and the high ratings from teachers and unions.

Thank you, Stan.

Richard S. Bogartz is a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.