Special Report

The Work Goes On, the Cause Endures,

[and] the Hope Still Lives with new Ted

Kennedy Institute

BOSTON When you walk in the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the

United States Senate, you are at once breath taken. The stunning architecture of the

building before setting foot inside any exhibits sets the clear signal that this is a

modern museum, and indeed it is.

Welcome to Kennedy Country - Boston Mayor Marty Walsh

If you are me, walking into the Institute came after hours of buildup. We

arrived late Sunday night, touching down in the Land of Kennedy (the once-

proposed motto for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) at 11:00. My faithful

traveling companion/my assistant/my Dad and I went straight to our hotel and then,

to sleep. We woke up at 6 AM on Monday, ready to start the day. The dedication

ceremony featured speakers such as Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. and

President Barack Obama, joined by pretty much every elected official in

Massachusetts, as the President put it. And then some: former Senate Majority

Leaders Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Trent Lott (R-MS), Boston Mayor Marty Walsh

(D), Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R), Massachusetts Sens. Ed Markey (D)

and Elizabeth Warren (D), Sen. John McCain, both of Ted Kennedys sons (one, a

state senator; the other, a former U.S. congressman), and his widow Vicki. The

entire ceremony, especially the Presidents arrival and address, was exhilarating

if chilly (and snowy at points) and I covered the whole thing from my seat on the

press risers, as a credentialed member of the media, along with 220 journalists,

many members of the White House Press Corps traveling with the Obamas. Unless

otherwise noted, all of the quotes in this article are ones I recorded in my reporters

notebook during the ceremony.

After the ceremony, we waited for hours in the adjacent John F. Kennedy

Presidential Library, before the Secret Service finally announced, POTUS,

FLOTUS, and VPOTUS [agent lingo for the President, First Lady, and Vice

President] have left the perimeter. We could tour the Institute.

American democracy is complicatedthe Edward M.

Kennedy Institute works to lift the veil - University of Massachusetts Boston

Chancellor Dr. J. Keith Motley

Americans are becoming increasingly disengaged with their government,

especially the next generation of leaders, as they are called at the EMK Institute

attempting to inspire them, with 77% of 18- to 34-year-olds failing to name one

U.S. Senator representing their own state when asked by Fusion.

As Kennedys widow Victoria Reggie Kennedy said in her remarks

introducing the President at the dedication ceremony, Teddy wanted young

people, especially young people, to rise above gridlock and poll numbers to be

involved in democracy.

So, enter the Institutes solution to rising above those numbers: if young

Americans dont know about their lawmakers, why not make them senators? From

the moment visitors enter the Institute, they are handed tablets that allow them to

engage with the exhibits. Ever visitor creates a senatorial profile, with party and

state represented, complete with their official portrait a selfie.

The exhibits teach about the Senates members, traditions, and milestones,

and also the legislative process in a multi-player, interactive activity allowing

visitors to debate a National Ice Cream Sundae Bill. At this exhibit, participants

will express their views on the bill and will go through the steps of a bill becoming

a law, and finally cast a vote.

The practice comes in handy later.

[Ted Kennedy was] the greatest Senator of all time - Senator Ed Markey

Ted Kennedy always paid deference and respect, Joe Biden said. Marty

Walsh hailed him as one of the most effective legislators in American history.

President Obama called him, somebody who bridged the partisan divide over and

over and over again, with genuine effort and affection, in an era when

bipartisanship has become so very rare. And while John McCain referred to the

Institute as a fitting memorial to the man who gave a half centuryof public

serviceto the place he loved, the United States Senate and Trent Lott said, the

spirit of Ted Kennedywill reside in this building, everyone stressed the Edward

M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate is more about the latter part of

its name than the former. In other words: this is for the Senate, not Ted Kennedy.

And thats trueuntil the office.

The Institute

includes a nearly 800-

square-foot replica of

Kennedys Senate office,

in which sits all of the

furniture, paintings, family

photographs, busts, books,

posters, and artifacts that

once surrounded a hard-

working Edward M.

Kennedy. Viewing the

office gives you the

feeling that you are

stepping into the history made during Kennedys 47 years of Senate service:

consisting of meetings on the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Violence

Against Women Act, Head Start, the War on Poverty, No Child Left Behind, and

dozens of other bills he ushered to passage.

Outside the office is a replica of Kennedys outer office, also featuring

copies of his numerous paintings. Outside that is an exhibit titled Lion of the

Senate, about Ted Kennedy. While this exhibit is just temporary, together with the

office replica, it feel like a presidential library, which include replicas of the Oval

Office and exhibits on the presidents lives, and have been often criticized as

shrines wasting taxpayer money. The difference? The $78 million Institute is

funded with just$38 million of federal money, and is truly a shrine to an institution

(the Senate), not a man, a monument not to [Ted Kennedy] but to what we, the

people, have the power to do together, as President Obama put it and as we will

see in the next leg of the tour.

Turning classrooms into cloakrooms and hallways into

hearing rooms - President Barack Obama

In his memoir True Compass, the late Senator Ted Kennedy recounts the story of

his first visit to Capitol Hill, when his tour guide told him, Youve just seen all

the buildings that symbolize what is important about this country. But remember

that it isnt just the buildings. Its what happens inside the buildings that matters.

Kennedys tour guide was his brother Jack, best known as future President John F.

Kennedy. The year was 1947: Jack was a newly sworn-in member of the U.S.

House, Ted was a teenager 15 years away from his 47-year Senate career. But

when the latter wrote his book in 2009, he wrote that while this was the tour where

he first felt a physical love of the place [the Capitol], the advice [his brother

gave him] has stayed with me to this day.

The importance of both the physical building and process of the Senate are on full

display at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, and

nowhere more than at the replica Senate chamber that is the buildings cornerstone.

After learning about the

Senate and the way it

works, at the end of

their tour of the

Institute, a visitor walks

into a full-scale replica

of the United States

Senate chamber, and

their evolution to

becoming a Senator, an

equal of Ted Kennedy,

is complete. In the

chamber, up to 100

participates can sit at

Senate desks and take

on the role of a United

States Senator, and debate and vote on one of many issues, either modern (like

immigration) or historic (like the Compromise of 1850). School groups have

already been brought in, and will continue to travel to the Institute, to participate in

the Senate Immersion Module (SIM).

A full-scale replica of the Senate chambercan help light the fire of imagination,

plant the seed of noble ambition in the minds of future generations. Imagine a

gaggle of school kids clutching tablets, turning classrooms into cloakrooms and

hallways into hearing rooms, assigned an issue of the day and the responsibility to

solve it, President Obama said. Imagine their moral universe expanding as they

hear about the momentous battles waged in that chamber and how they echo

throughout todays societyImagine the shift in their sense of whats

possible. The first time they see a video of senators who look like they do -- men

and women, blacks and whites, Latinos, Asian-Americans; those born to great

wealth but also those born of incredibly modest means.

Obama continued: Imagine what a child feels the first time she steps onto that

floor, before shes old enough to be cynical; before shes told what she cant do;

before shes told who she cant talk to or work with; what she feels when she sits at

one of those desks; what happens when it comes her turn to stand and speak on

behalf of something she cares about; and cast a vote, and have a sense of purpose.

The chamber replica was the first room on the Institute thought up by Ted

Kennedy. As Vicki Kennedy told it at the dedication ceremony, the idea first

emerged at a family dinner. Kennedys nephew-in-law designer Ed Schlossberg

was present, and later led the exhibition design for the Institute. When Senator

Kennedy passed away in 2009, it was his widow Vicki who picked up his mantle

and worked to make the dream of an Institute into a reality.

I met Vicki Kennedy right

outside the Senate chamber,

after exiting it. To me, that

was one of the greatest

moments of my trip. I told

her about my newsletter, and

my trip here and she

seemed genuinely interested,

smiling and asking

questions. And I told her

that her husband was my

first political hero, which is

true. I first heard his name at

the 2009 Inauguration, when

he collapsed at a luncheon, which we saw on TV from our hotel room (my Dad,

sister, and I attended the inauguration, but were warming up in our room during the

luncheon). Thus, through Ted, and not his brothers Jack or Bobby, I was

introduced me to the golden Camelot family. As I watched the ambulance on

screen, and heard reporters ramble on about Edward Kennedy, I resolved to learn

everything I could about him. For the next eight months, I tracked the senators

ailing health and read his book, and cried when I was informed of his death. That

day, during second grade free-writing time, I wrote about Ted Kennedys death

my first political reporting.

Walking around the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, to

paraphrase to Kennedys, it is evident that Teds cause will endure, the hope will

live, and the dream will not die as a torch of learning is passed to a new generation

mine.