The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College has a new name: The Center for Human Rights Leadership.
During a meeting on Friday, May 15, The CMC Board of Trustees approved the motion to alter the Center's name, adopting instead a title that will reflect broader efforts in the field of human rights. In tandem with the Center's new name change comes the launch of a redesigned Web site, highlighting stories and photography from students and alumni, and organized by geographical region.
President Pamela Gann observed that throughout the years since its founding in March 2003 by Professor John Roth (now the Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy), and the founding members of the Center's Advisory Board, led by Leigh Crawford '94, The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights achieved a truly impressive educational and intellectual record through its conferences on the Holocaust, its human rights internships for students, and its faculty research.
"The Center is of vital importance to CMC students who travel and work throughout the world and seek to understand and help overcome human rights abuses," President Gann said. "I look forward to further achievements made by the Center under the leadership of its advisory board and Professor Ed Haley, its director."
Haley, the W.M. Keck Foundation Professor of International Strategic Studies, pointed out that the Center will continue to emphasize the centrality of the Holocaust and its legacy for students, while broadening the scope of its efforts in the field of human rights.
Growing out of CMC's mission to provide a superior liberal arts education, "Our aim," he added, "is to provide CMC students the moral insight, knowledge, and skills they will need in order to play leadership roles in human rights in every arena from the corporate and nonprofit worlds to the fields of law, diplomacy, politics, and military affairs."
Using the Holocaust as its foundation, the Center traditionally has promoted research, publication, teaching, internships, and service that explore not only the causes of genocide and human rights abuses, but also the ethical commitments, economic policies, political processes, and leadership qualities that are necessary to oppose and correct those destructive conditions.
This summer, the Center will sponsor human rights internships for students in criminal justice at the law schools of the University of California, Berkeley, and Georgetown University, and development projects in non-governmental organizations in Central and South America, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
Claremont McKenna College is home to 10 research institutes and centers that provide students and faculty with opportunities to engage in practical experience, academic research, and focused coursework.