Panelists Say Legacy of JFK '40 Continues

The legacy of John F. Kennedy '40 lives on in plans for a national service program for young people, panelists said at a forum held in honor of the late president.

The event, entitled "Creating a National Ethic of Service: Carrying JFK's Vision Forward," drew a crowd of more than 300 on what would have been his 76th birthday.

Charles T. Royer, director of the Institute of Politics, Introduced Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56, who kicked off the program with a film recalling President Kennedy's 1961 call to service prepared by the John F. Kennedy Library's video and film archives.

"You must be a participant and not a spectator," President Kennedy said in a speech announcing the creation of a permanent Peace Corps. "It is those who act rightly who win the prize."

Following the film clips, John F. Kennedy Jr. Moderated a discussion whose panel members included Eli Segal, assistant to President Clinton and director of the office of National Service: Dorothy Stoneman '63, Director of the National Youth Build Coalition, Elaine Jones of the NAACP Legal Defense and Litigation Fund, and Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities Robert Coles '50.

According to Segal, two-thirds of college first year students are presently actively serving their communities.

"We have a new leader who wants to unleash the idealism of young people today as JFK did in the '60s," Segal said.

"This is a momentous moment in our history-we see it coming, we feel it coming," he said," "32 years after JFK laid it all out for us."

Jones herself was a beneficiary of JFK's national service plan. "I was a product of the segregated South," she said. "I had no contact with larger society until the I joined the Peace Corps."

"So I hesitate to call it service," she added, "because I was the one who was served."

Jones said that President Clinton's National Service Incentive would provide 150,000 openings for full-time service."

Coles attributed much of the intellectual energy flowing on college campuses to the moral energy inspired by service.

"This is how we fit our 'book knowledge' into the lived life," he said. "Through reaching out, students are learning what it means to become a human being."

Coles challenged universities throughout the country to let community service energy their campuses, and to respond to that energy accordingly.

"We were all carried back in time by the film clips of JFK," he said. "We were reminded of people who wanted to work to make life better in this country, people who wanted to understand."

Several of the panelists commended Senator Kennedy as being one of the leading proponents of service in the nation today, carrying on in the tradition of his late brother.

"Almost every piece of legislation regarding civil rights fairness and equality was pushed through the Senate by Ted Kennedy," Jones said.

Stoneman thanked Kennedy for being the "outstanding, lone voice in the Senate for some of the most humanitarian policies in recent memory."

And Segal added that, while the National Service Incentive was most often attributed to himself, "the real power and idea behind it are not mine but Ted Kennedy's."

Panel members opened the discussion to the audience for questions Audience members included Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg '80 and New Jersey Governor Jim Florio, recent Profiles in Courage award recipient

Jones herself was a beneficiary of JFK's national service plan. "I was a product of the segregated South," she said. "I had no contact with larger society until the I joined the Peace Corps."

"So I hesitate to call it service," she added, "because I was the one who was served."

Jones said that President Clinton's National Service Incentive would provide 150,000 openings for full-time service."

Coles attributed much of the intellectual energy flowing on college campuses to the moral energy inspired by service.

"This is how we fit our 'book knowledge' into the lived life," he said. "Through reaching out, students are learning what it means to become a human being."

Coles challenged universities throughout the country to let community service energy their campuses, and to respond to that energy accordingly.

"We were all carried back in time by the film clips of JFK," he said. "We were reminded of people who wanted to work to make life better in this country, people who wanted to understand."

Several of the panelists commended Senator Kennedy as being one of the leading proponents of service in the nation today, carrying on in the tradition of his late brother.

"Almost every piece of legislation regarding civil rights fairness and equality was pushed through the Senate by Ted Kennedy," Jones said.

Stoneman thanked Kennedy for being the "outstanding, lone voice in the Senate for some of the most humanitarian policies in recent memory."

And Segal added that, while the National Service Incentive was most often attributed to himself, "the real power and idea behind it are not mine but Ted Kennedy's."

Panel members opened the discussion to the audience for questions Audience members included Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg '80 and New Jersey Governor Jim Florio, recent Profiles in Courage award recipient