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 onceproposed 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 800square-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 hardworking 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.