Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.
Senior Research Scholar and Director of the Cuba Program at the Institute for Latin American Studies at Columbia University
Dr. Margaret E. Crahan received her doctorate from Columbia University in history. Until September 2009 she was the Kozmetsky Distinguished Professor and Director of the Kozmetsky Center of Excellence in Global Finance at St. Edward’s University. From 1982-1994 she was the Henry R. Luce Professor of Religion, Power and Political Process at Occidental College and from 1994-2008 the Dorothy Epstein Professor at Hunter College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Dr. Crahan has also held the Marous Professorship at the University of Pittsburgh (1993-94) and the Will and Ariel Durant Chair at St. Peter’s University (1988-89). She is a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Edward’s University and Vice President of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights. She was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Latin America, 2006-08. She has participated in international missions to Bolivia, Chile, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. She has also visited Cuba some fifty times since 1973 for research. Dr. Crahan has published over one hundred articles and books including Human Rights and Basic Needs in the Americas; Religion, Culture and Society: The Case of Cuba; and The Wars on Terrorism and Iraq: Human Rights, Unilateralism, and US Foreign Policy (with Thomas G. Weiss and John Goering).