Statement from UMass Boston regarding the passing of Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Statement from UMass Boston regarding the passing of Senator Edward M. Kennedy

August 26, 2009
by Office of Communications

The University of Massachusetts Boston extends its deepest condolences to the family of Senator Edward M. Kennedy in their time of mourning and loss. Our students, faculty, and staff—as a university community, and as a part of the city of Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the United States, and the entire global community—share in your mourning and the sense of having lost a courageous and passionate champion of the values we hold most dear.

For decades, Senator Edward M. Kennedy has been a true friend of the University of Massachusetts Boston. We admired and loved him for his commitment to equality and to every victim of inequality and disparate treatment, his vigorous support of education for all and research to enhance our quality of life, his defense of the integrity of our environment, and his impassioned efforts in the realms of healthcare, civil rights legislation, and more to build a world in which all human beings are secure and free to shape their own personal and social lives.

The values that guided his life’s work are our values too. We are especially pleased that his legacy will be sustained by the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Study of the Senate, which will soon be built on our campus. Offering a new model for education and outreach, the Kennedy Institute will invite the American public into the discourse on the challenges facing the nation. Standing alongside John F. Kennedy Library and the University of Massachusetts Boston, the institute will be dedicated to educating the general public and students, as well as new senators, senate staff, and others in public service, about the role and importance of the United States Senate. It will also work closely with the university to provide superior educational opportunities.

The University of Massachusetts Boston, which embodies the values represented by Senator Kennedy’s life's work, will miss a friend, a kindred spirit, and a special example.

Sincerely,

J. Keith Motley, PhD
Chancellor