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As a member of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s staff, Alexandros Washburn had the distinction of being the only staff architect employed by a U.S. senator. Of Greek descent, Washburn loved the fact that Moynihan frequently quoted Pericles’ Oath of the Athenian City-State. It wasn’t until he entered the Maxwell School and saw the oath inscribed on a foyer wall, however, that he fully understood Moynihan’s affinity for those words.

Washburn was one of dozens of self-described alumni of the “University of Moynihan” who descended on Maxwell to pay homage to their mentor at the dedication of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs on March 14.

They came from California; from Indiana; from New York; and, of course, from Washington to pay tribute to Moynihan’s exceptional career in public service, to launch a new educational institute in his name, but mostly to celebrate the man who had given so much to them all.

“He was first and foremost a teacher,” says Washburn. “Today is just a transmission of what he gave each of us.”

The day began in the atrium of Eggers Hall with a dedication ceremony and ribbon cutting, featuring remarks from U.S. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer, who donned Moynihan’s trademark hat because “his shoes were too big to fill”; from Moynihan’s daughter, Maura; and others.

After the ribbon cutting by Moynihan’s 14-year-old grandson, Michael Patrick Avedon, guests wandered upstairs to the Moynihan Institute, where cuisine representing the Institute’s three program areas of study (Europe, South Asia, and Latin America) was served alongside a cultural festival of music, artwork, and dance. “Perhaps the only opportunity you’ll have to visit three continents without actually crossing an ocean,” said Margaret “Peg” Hermann, director of the Moynihan Institute—and perhaps your only opportunity to chat with George Will while sampling tamales.

Will was a participant in one of four symposia held in Maxwell Auditorium after lunch, at which guest experts and Maxwell faculty members explored topics that were of special interest to Senator Moynihan: the future of the family, transnational NGOs, globally migrant workforces, and tradeoffs between liberty and security.

Later, at a cocktail reception at SU’s Schine Center, Moynihan’s wife Elizabeth, daughter Maura, and grandson (who had exchanged his jacket and tie for a more comfortable SU lacrosse sweatshirt) enjoyed the display of Moynihan letters and documents on loan from the “New York’s Moynihan” exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York and visited with the former staffers, whom Maura considers “like family.”

“This day has occasioned a fabulous Moynihan reunion,” she said. “Dad died almost two years ago, but I can’t help but feel that he’s sort of in the room with us.”

At the evening’s tribute dinner, Meet the Press’s Tim Russert hosted a program that included videotaped highlights of Moynihan’s 24 Meet the Press appearances, and testimonial comments from U.S. Representative Charles Rangel, Dean Emeritus John Palmer, and others.

“He was the smartest man I ever met, and the best teacher I ever had,” said Russert, a Moynihan staff member from 1977 to 1982. “So many stories. Such a legacy.”

Mark Patterson, chief of staff of the Senate Finance Committee while Moynihan chaired it, brought down the house by sharing some of the typical research requests Moynihan made of him and fellow staffers in a pre-Google era: “I believe that the second law passed by the U.S. Congress was a tax on Caribbean rum. Find out if I’m right.”

“Get me Christopher Wren’s epitaph and if you can’t find it in three minutes, it’s no good to me.” (Wren was an English architect who died in 1723.)

“The constitution of the United States was once kept folded up in a little tin box in a closet at the State Department. Get me an account of that.”

Laughter aside, Patterson said his time with the Senator “was the most wonderful, exhilarating experience a person could have,” describing an office atmosphere that combined the “frenzy of a hospital emergency room, the sense of urgency of an air traffic control tower, the work ethic of boot camp on Paris Island, and the esprit de corps among staff of perhaps West Point on graduation day. And all that was before you got into the Senator’s office itself.”

Thus with merriment in their hearts and mist in their eyes, Patterson, Russert, Washburn and the crowd of 250 ended the evening on their feet, with glasses raised, “To Pat.”

—Renee Gearhart Levy

Related: How the Moynihan Institute Plans to Change and Grow