The Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut advances knowledge and leadership in human rights through transformative education, interdisciplinary scholarship, and engaged research. By bringing together students, scholars, and practitioners, the Institute generates knowledge that promotes and protects human rights in Connecticut and around the world.
Research
Our faculty pursue novel and critical approaches to human rights scholarship in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, as well as in the fields of law, engineering, heath, business, education, and social work. The Institute supports interdisciplinary collaboration across these fields, with a specific focus on thematic research clusters in global health and human rights, economic and social rights, critical humanitarianism, and human rights practice.
Teaching
We house one of the largest undergraduate and graduate programs in human rights in the country, including a major and a minor in human rights, graduate certificate, and a Master of Arts in human rights. Students receive a broad, interdisciplinary grounding in human rights history, theory, and practice, specialize in a range of issues and fields, and engage in experiential learning opportunities with leading human rights practitioners around the world.
Practice
HRI fosters a culture of human rights through engagement and community impact in Connecticut and around the world. We partner with communities, organizations, government agencies, schools, and nonprofits to address real-world issues, provide hands-on experience for students, and produce knowledge that has practical impact.
The History of Human Rights at UConn
1996 – 2000
In 1996, President William J. Clinton and Senator Christopher J. Dodd dedicated the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, honoring Thomas Dodd’s service as Executive Trial Counsel in the first Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. The following “Dodd Human Rights Year” featured programming on the Holocaust and Nuremberg Trials, human rights violations in Latin America, Tibet, and Cambodia, disability rights in North America, Japanese-American internment, and the Tuskegee Study — opening with an address from Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel and closing with one from former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Alumnus Gary Gladstein endowed the Marsha Lilien Gladstein Visiting Professorship in Human Rights, and the Dodd Center launched a distinguished lecture series the same year. Constitutional scholar and longtime Open Society Foundations board member Wiktor Osiatyński held the inaugural Gladstein Visiting Professorship in 2000; HRI has since hosted 19 more. Together, the two programs have brought leaders such as former UN Ambassador Samantha Power, Nuremberg Prosecutor Ben Ferencz, playwright Zakes Mda, and historians Carol Anderson and Samuel Moyn to campus.
2001 – 2003
UConn designated human rights a university priority and established a human rights minor — soon one of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ most popular interdisciplinary programs. That year, UNESCO also recognized the University’s scholarship with North America’s first UNESCO Chair in Comparative Human Rights.
In 2003, the University appointed Richard A. Wilson, the first Gladstein Chair of Human Rights, as director of the fledgling Human Rights Institute, aiming to create a university-wide program to coordinate human rights scholarship across UConn’s schools and campuses. HRI has served as the intellectual hub for dozens of joint and affiliated scholars researching and teaching human rights across the arts, humanities, social sciences, business, education, engineering, health, law, and social work.
That same year, the University — under Christopher J. Dodd’s leadership and with a gift from John Kluge — awarded the first Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights, whose recipients have included Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, human rights defender Bryan Stevenson, Physicians for Human Rights, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center.
2008 – 2021
HRI’s academic programs expanded considerably during this era. HRI established a Graduate Certificate for MA and PhD students in 2008. In 2012 HRI created an undergraduate Major in Human Rights — the first at any U.S. public university and now one of the largest in the country, sending majors into internships with leading human rights organizations worldwide. In 2021, HRI added an MA in Human Rights, drawing on faculty from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the School of Law, the Neag School of Education, the School of Social Work, and the School of Business.
This growth was made possible in large part by an endowment campaign that George Soros and the Open Society Foundations (OSF) helped build. OSF funds established scholarships for human rights interns alongside student support named for Alan B. Slifka and the late Wiktor Osiatyński — among several scholarships, including the Mark S. Rudy and Laura Rubbo awards, that continue to support academically outstanding, financially eligible students today.
Fostering innovative research in human rights spanning academic disciplines was a hallmark of HRI. New clusters in global health and human rights and, with the School of Engineering, engineering for human rights joined the original focus on economic and social rights and critical humanitarianism studies. HRI also collaborated with the Dodd Center and School of Business to establish the Business and Human Rights Program — part of a broader “Connecticut School of Human Rights” ethos that pushed disciplinary boundaries in research, teaching, and practice.
2020 – Present
The COVID-19 pandemic tested the Institute early in the decade, but HRI met the challenge by deepening its research capacity. The Institute launched its Human Rights Research Hub in 2020, supporting original research, data collection, and methods training for faculty and students, while the Connecticut/Baden-Württemberg Human Rights Research Consortium — of which HRI is a core partner — matured into a leading transatlantic platform for work human rights in the humanities, social sciences, law, and business.
The Institute also deepened its commitment to democratic values during these years. In 2021, the 25th anniversary of the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center highlighted UConn’s legacy in human rights education, research, and public engagement, and that October the Institute’s home was rededicated as The Dodd Center for Human Rights in a ceremony attended by President Joe Biden — reaffirming the Center’s role as the shared home of the Institute, its Dodd Impact programs, the University Library’s Archives & Special Collections, and the Center for Judaic Studies & Contemporary Jewish Life. The University also launched Dodd Human Rights Impact Programs, uniting the Dodd Center’s outreach with HRI’s academic programs; within HRI. Dodd Impact currently serves as the external programming arm weaving scholarship together with action and practice.
At the heart of the Institute’s growth stood a partnership that had shaped HRI from the beginning. In February 2023, the UConn Board of Trustees renamed the Human Rights Institute the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, honoring alumnus Gary Gladstein ’66 and his family for a quarter-century of visionary support. The Gladsteins’ commitment reached back to 1998, when Gary Gladstein established a visiting professorship in memory of his late wife, Marsha, whose work as a teacher had first drawn the family to the cause of human rights.
In the years since, the Gladsteins’ generosity has funded programming, scholarships, an endowed chair, a research fund, and, more recently, the Wiktor Osiatyński Chair alongside George Soros and Open Society Foundations — investments that let HRI recruit distinguished faculty across the social sciences, humanities, law, engineering, social work, and business, and helped define the interdisciplinary field itself.
“I am a proud alumnus of UConn and wanted to give back to the University that helped develop all aspects of my life,” Gladstein said. “Respect for human rights has always been a major concern to me. With the increasing challenges facing our society, I saw my support as an opportunity to educate current and future generations about the importance of human rights.” Then-Director Kathryn Libal credited the sustained partnership with making the Institute’s breadth and ambition possible; the renaming recognized both the family’s generosity and their leadership in building one of the world’s foremost human rights programs.
Also in 2023, the Institute welcomed James Waller — a distinguished scholar of the Holocaust and genocide studies — as the first Christopher J. Dodd Chair in Human Rights Practice and director of Dodd Human Rights Impact, uniting classroom teaching with practice and outreach. His arrival coincided with the inaugural Human Rights Summit in October 2023, which opened with the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights going to the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv — a fitting emblem of the Institute’s aim to connect scholarship with the urgent human rights challenges of the day.
The Institute Today
Today the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute is a vibrant intellectual community: 15 jointly appointed or core faculty members span 10 departments, and nearly 50 faculty serve on the Gladstein Advisory Committee across the University. Its transdisciplinary ethos brings engineering together with political science, sociology, and economics, and business, law, and social work together with liberal arts and education.
As it looks ahead, under the leadership of Professor James Waller, the Institute remains anchored in the vision that has guided it from the start: that rigorous scholarship and sustained partnership can advance human dignity in a changing world. Building on nearly twenty-five years of growth, HRI continues to prepare the next generation of scholars, advocates, and practitioners to meet the human rights challenges of our time.
Policy on Statements
The Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute does not issue public statements on specific events, controversies, policy matters, or political developments. As an academic institute, our primary mission is to advance research, education, dialogue, and evidence-based understanding of human rights issues. The Institute recognizes that members of its community hold diverse perspectives and that the role of a university-based center is to foster inquiry, critical analysis, and informed discussion rather than to serve as an advocacy organization. By refraining from institutional statements, the Institute preserves its independence, maintains an inclusive environment for scholarly engagement, and supports the free exchange of ideas among researchers, students, practitioners, and community partners. The Institute’s commitment to human rights is expressed through its scholarship, teaching, public programming, and engagement activities rather than through official positions on current events.