Edwin G. Corr

Edwin G. Corr "has served as the Associate Director of the International Programs Center (IPC) of the University of Oklahoma (OU) since 1996 and is currently IPC's Senior Research Fellow. Ambassador Corr works with IPC Executive Director Ambassador Edward J. Perkins and OU President David L. Boren, former U.S. Senator and Governor of Oklahoma, to internationalize the curriculum and activities of all OU students. The IPC has established with the College of Arts and Sciences an interdisciplinary School of International and Area Studies with masters and bachelors degrees, and introduced international curricula within OU's professional colleges and schools, e.g. Law, Business and Engineering. The objective is to prepare today's youth for life and work in the globalized 21st Century. The IPC also reaches out to state, national, and international communities and attempts to educate and to contribute to America's role in international affairs.

"From 1995 until 2001, Mr. Corr was the creator and the Director of the Energy Institute of the Americas (EIA). The EIA is a multi-national non-governmental organization with its secretariat at OU. The EIA's members are world-class research universities in the energy field that constitute an inter-American network to address through education, research, human resources development, and information exchange the growing interdependency of the Americas for energy resource development and its attendant environmental management issues. Stretching from Canada to Argentina, the EIA and its member-institutions contribute to the integration of the hemisphere's energy sector, the creation of a consensus on a hemispheric strategy, and the successful establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Americas by 2005.

"Edwin Corr was the Henry Bellmon Professor of Public Service and a Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma from 1990-1996. Professor Corr taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels. He speaks at major conferences and meetings throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America, and addresses civic groups and organizations. He published The Political Process in Colombia (University of Denver, 1972), co-edited Low-Intensity Conflict: Old Threats in a New World (Westview Press, 1992) and The Search for United States Security: A Forward Strategy for the 21st Century (Praeger, 2001), has contributed chapters to a number of edited works, and published articles, both in English and Spanish. He is fluent in Spanish and has studied French, Thai, and Quechua.

"Corr served as the United States Ambassador to Peru from 1980-81, to Bolivia from 1981-85, and to El Salvador from 1985-88. From 1978 to 1980 he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters.

"He has worked from the grass roots level with the Peace Corps and a development foundation to the pinnacle of diplomacy as a Chief of Mission in four countries. Corr, a career Foreign Service Officer, was appointed as an Ambassador by both Republican and Democratic party presidents. Following his first brief assignment in the Department of State on the Mexican "desk" in 1961, he served in Mexico City from 1962-66, where he was for two years Staff Assistant to the Ambassador. Mr. Corr was Peace Corps Director in Cali, Colombia from 1966-68. He was the Panama "desk officer" in the Department of State from 1969 to 1971. Mr. Corr helped create and worked in 1971-72 for the Inter-American Social Development Institute, (now the InterAmerican Foundation), a foundation that worked through private sector organizations with the "poorest of the poor" in Latin America. He was Executive Assistant to the U.S. Ambassador in Thailand from 1972 through 1975, where he also was for extended periods the Chief of the Political Section. From 1976 to 1978, Mr. Corr served as the Deputy Chief of Mission and for about five months of this period as the Charge d'Affaires in Ecuador, after having been elevated to Deputy Chief of Mission from his position as Political Counselor to which he was assigned in 1975.

"Mr. Corr earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Education in January 1957 from the University of Oklahoma and was awarded a Masters degree in History from the same institution in 1961. He was assigned by the Department of State to the Institute for Latin America studies at the University of Texas during the 1968-69 academic year, where he completed work for a Masters Degree in Political Science. He took numerous courses over the years at the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State in Washington, D.C.

"Ambassador Corr was recognized by the Government of the Republic of Ecuador in 1978 for his extraordinary service as a diplomat and Charge d'Affaires in that country with the National Order of Merit decoration. The Government of Bolivia bestowed on him in 1985 the highest award given to foreigners, "The Condor of the Andes," for his work in helping that country move from dictatorship to democracy. The same year, 1985, he received from the United States Government the "President's Performance Award" and from the Department of State an Award for Superior Performance. In 1988, Ambassador Corr was presented the Distinguished Service Award by the Secretary of State. He also received the highest award that can be given a foreigner by El Salvador in 1988 when President Duarte bestowed upon Corr the Jose Matias Delgado Decoration.

"Mr. Corr was born in Edmond, Oklahoma on August 6, 1934, and graduated from high school in Perry, Oklahoma in 1952. He was an Eagle Scout. At the University of Oklahoma, he and his identical twin brother, Bert, were members of championship wrestling teams. Corr was a U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer from 1957-1960. As a member of the All-Marine wrestling team he placed fourth in the National AAU wrestling tournament of 1959.

"Edwin is married to the former Susanne Springer. The Corrs have three daughters."


 * Director, MAP International