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U.S. President Barack Obama will attend the inauguration of
the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate on
Monday. Its centerpiece is a full-scale replica of the U.S.
Senate chamber.
Groups of middle school and high school students will assemble
in the roughly $79 million virtual Senate, located on the campus
of the University of Massachusetts in Boston, using high-tech
applications to try out politics and law-making.
"The experience allows students to take on simulated roles as
senators," the non-profit institute, co-founded by Kennedy widow
Victoria Reggie Kennedy, said in a press release.
It said it hoped the program would boost civic engagement among
America's youth, "amid decreased investments in civics
education, growing feelings of disillusionment and frustration
with an increasingly polarized political system, and daily
reports of government dysfunction."
President Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and Vice President
Joe Biden will attend and speak at the project's opening
ceremony Monday morning. The institute will then be opened to
the public on Tuesday.
Edward Kennedy died in 2009 from brain cancer after serving as
the Democratic Senator for Massachusetts for nearly 47 years.
The institute is intended to "accomplish Senator Kennedy’s
desire to create a participatory experience where people could
see what it was like to be a Senator and act in the best
interests of their State and the United States," the institute
said in the release.
(Reporting by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by David Gregorio)
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