After 40 years in Congress, Nancy Pelosi to help create institute to train leaders of the future

By Dana Bash, CNN

(CNN) — For the first time in 40 years, retiring Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California will not be returning to Congress in January.

CNN has learned where she will direct her legendary energy — at the University of California, Berkeley, which is creating the Nancy Pelosi Institute. The institute, dedicated to research, learning and civic engagement, is slated to open in January 2027.

“I think all of us in public service who have an opportunity to do so, want to use our experience to train leaders for the future,” Pelosi said in a phone interview.

“I viewed this as a liberation for me from the political, not politics, but partisanship. Because you’re going to an academic institution. It’s about what our founders had in mind with our Constitution, and it’s a beautiful story to tell,” she said.

The former House speaker said a group of administrators and about eight professors at Berkeley approached her almost a year ago with the idea of the Nancy Pelosi Institute. She said she was complimented and, even, “dazzled” by the proposal, but also surprised — so much so that she took some time before agreeing to go forward.

What intrigued Pelosi the most, she said, was the notion of a bipartisan academic center at Berkeley, “the epitome of public education,” with a concentration on issues she spent her decadeslong political career focused on.

“I loved it because they talked about human rights in the US and in the world, talking about and addressing the challenges to our democracy, talking about challenges of the climate and economic income inequity,” Pelosi, 86, said.

After hearing their ideas, Pelosi agreed to raise $25 million before the announcement, which the famously prodigious fundraiser said she did “quite easily.” The university said in a press release that this is a $50 million campaign.

Unlike other academic institutes or eponymous endeavors, Pelosi said this will not be a “brick-and-mortar thing” but rather “programmatic.”

She was asked: You won’t see “Nancy Pelosi Institute” on a building?

“I hope not,” she replied with a laugh.

“They have classrooms, they have auditoriums, they have theaters,” she added.

While Pelosi’s papers from her time as speaker of the House are at the Library of Congress, she said the institute will display of some of the awards she received, the legislation she helped pass, and, maybe, even some “personal effects” to make it “fun and interesting to get people there.” This exhibit is slated to open in spring of 2027.

“It’s about technology. Anything you wany to convey, you can convey technologically. It doesn’t mean you don’t want physical evidence so that people have excitement about seeing the original … but people want to know how these things happened more than what they were exactly,” Pelsoi said.

The California congresswoman said she will bring high-profile people from both parties to visit and lecture at Berkeley, and that she will even co-teach a class with professor Eric Schickler, a leading scholar on Congress.

“If you’re trying to engage another generation to prepare them for the future, you must listen to them. That’s the exciting part of it.” Pelosi said.

To be sure, the two-time House speaker still has this November’s elections on her mind, saying, unsolicited, that “we’re going to win the House,”

“I’m so proud of what I leave behind, and how they go on to what’s next,” Pelosi said.

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