WELCOME BACK SUMMER IS OVER
IDS WELCOME BACK EDITION 2012
THIS IS THE WELCOME BACK EDITION 2012 a special edition of the Indiana Daily Student that consists of a compilation of the top stories from this summer — so you can get caught up on all the news you might have missed since you left Bloomington in May. This summer had its fair share
INDIANA DAILY STUDENT | IDSNEWS.COM
JAKE NEW Editor-in-Chief
of sad news, from the passing of both Elinor and Vincent Ostrom to the stubborn drought that destroyed many local farmers’ crops to the one year anniversary of Lauren Spierer’s disappearance. But there was also celebration as Hoosier athletes prepared for the 2012
COLLEEN SIKORSKI Managing Editor
Olympics in London and a local cat became an internet celebrity despite — or, maybe, because of — her abnormalities. Time to dive in and get caught up on these stories and many more. Welcome back.
ALIYA MOOD Art Director
CAITLIN PETERKIN Special Publications Editor
Vincent Ostrom, right, and Elinor Ostrom received the University Medal from IU President Michael A. McRobbie in February 2010. Vincent Ostrom died June 29 at his home from complications related to cancer. PHOTO COURTESY OF IU NEWS ROOM
IU mourns academic icons Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom dies of cancer at 78 BY NONA TEPPER ntepper@indiana.edu
Call her Lin. Elinor “Lin” Ostrom, 2009 Nobel Prize recipient and distinguished professor of political science, died June 12 at IU Health Bloomington Hospital. Ostrom, 78, will be remembered for her professional work, her commitment to students and her 47 years at the University. But the impact of her legacy can perhaps be summed wholly in her nickname: she will be remembered as Lin. “The thing you have to understand is everyone knew her as Lin,” Ostrom’s colleague Burnell Fischer said. “She was such an apIDS FILE PHOTO proachable, simple person, you could go and Elinor Ostrom, a professor of political science at Indiana University, became the first woman to just sit in her office for hours.” Fischer was a friend of Ostrom’s who re- be awarded the Nobel Prize for economics on Monday, Oct. 12, 2009. Ostrom was praised "for her searched urban forestry with her. analysis of economic governance, especially the The two worked at the Vincent and Elinor commons." Ostrom Workshop for Political Theory and Policy Analysis together for decades, but OsOstrom’s role in this discussion was trom’s time at the University spans further. After earning a Ph.D. in political science simple: she was the facilitator. Michael McGinnis, current director of from University of California-Los Angeles, the workshop, said he’d never met someOstrom came to Bloomington in 1965. Vincent Ostrom, her husband of 49 years, one who had such a knack for bringing was then hired to work as a political sci- people together. “Her enthusiasm was infectious,” McGinence professor at IU. The couple moved from Los Angeles to Bloomington for nis said. “She found a way to get people to work very hard with her.” the position. Her expertise lay in political science and Then, the University added Ostrom to the faculty directory. She was hired as an as- economics. Ostrom researched ways to dissistant professor because the department tribute resources to the masses beyond simneeded someone to teach Intro to American ple state- and market- driven practices. Her 1990 book, “Governing the ComGovernment at 7:30 a.m. She took the job and in 1973 founded the mons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action,” examines effective workshop with Vincent. Ostrom once described the workshop as a governance systems for common-pool resources, such as water treatment and space to unite people of many disciplines. IU graduate student Gwen Arnolds took a forest preservation. “She had an extraordinary gift of scholclass with Ostrom in 2006 and has remained a arship,” Dean of Students Harold “Pete” workshop member since. Goldsmith said. She said Ostrom In October 2009, she supported anyone with a “Her enthusiasm was became the first woman to good idea. infectious. She found ever receive the Nobel Prize “As a teacher Lin was alin Economic Science. ways incredibly engaged,” a way to get people to She won the award for Arnolds said. “It didn’t mat- work very hard with her.” her research in how people ter if you were a first-year Michael McGinnis, Director of graduate student or estab- Graduate Studies in the Department of overcome selfish interests to successfully manage natural lished professor. She would Political Science resources. pay attention to what you In April she was were saying.” Graduate students, undergraduates and also included in Time magazine’s list field experts work at the workshop to solve of the world’s 100 most influential current social and political problems and people of 2012. research issues, primarily in the field of sustainability, from a variety of angles. SEE ELINOR, PAGE A3
Shortly after death of his wife, Vincent Ostrom dies BY JAKE NEW jakenew@indiana.edu
When Vincent Ostrom took a position at University of California-Los Angeles in the late 1950s, he likely didn’t realize that one of his Ph.D students would become the first woman to ever win the Nobel Prize in economics — or that the same woman would one day be his wife of nearly 50 years. Vincent, distinguished IU professor and the husband of Nobel Laureate Elinor “Lin” Ostrom, died on June 29, less than three weeks after his wife died of pancreatic cancer. He was 92. “Vincent’s death, especially coming so soon after his wife Lin’s passing, is an inestimable and tragic loss to the university and to the broad fields of political theory, socialscience and policy-based interdisciplinary research,” IU President Michael McRobbie said in a statement June 30. Vincent was his wife’s biggest supporter, McRobbie said, but Elinor was always quick to point out the effect her husband had on her own success. He was born Sept. 25, 1919, in Nooksack, Wash. His parents were recent immigrants from Jamtland County, Sweden. He grew up on a farm where his family domesticated minks and sold the animals’ pelts. After graduating high school, he earned a political science degree from UCLA. In 1943, while earning his M.A., Vincent began teaching at Chaffey Union High School in Ontario, Calif. It was here that he made observations that not only created a foundation for his master’s thesis, but also the work his wife would later dedicate her career to. During the two years he taught in Ontario, Vincent noticed that citrus-growing smallholders created a system of land and water rights that provided what the farmers needed to sustain the farms’ incomes. The community also created an endowment for the local high school and a planned college. In short, he realized that a group of people with common interests and needs could create their own systems and institutions to achieve complex objectives — without any outside governance. “Lin studied the way small communities were able to govern themselves, and Vincent’s understanding was really a foundation on what she was doing,” said Michael McGinnis, director of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Vincent earned his M.A. in 1945 and a
Ph.D. in 1950. He taught at the University of Wyoming and the University of Oregon before returning to UCLA as an associate professor, where he met Elinor. The couple married in 1963. A year later, he accepted a full professor position at IU. Elinor joined him as a visiting assistant professor before eventually becoming an associate professor in the department of political science. An expert on democratic governance, Vincent’s list of accomplishments is long. He pioneered work on polycentric governance, helped draft Article VIII on Natural Re- “Vincent’s death... sources of the is an inestimable Alaska Constitu- and tragic loss to tion and consulted as a member of the university.” resource man- Michael McRobbie, IU agement com- President missions in three different states. In 1973, he cofounded what some say is his most lasting legacy: the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. The workshop brought together some of the best minds in political science and economics and encouraged a collaborative style of transdisciplinary work called the “Bloomington School.” It was at the workshop, located in a beige house off a brick street behind Collins Living-Learning Center, that Vincent proudly watched his wife accept her Nobel Prize on closed circuit television in 2009. His health and hearing were fading and, already in his late 80s, traveling to Stockholm would have proven difficult. “If he could have, he would have gone with her,” McGinnis said. “But it was so nice that he was able to watch her. I doubt he could hear her, but he could see her.” Even near the end of his life, when his caretakers brought him by the workshop, Vincent would point out Elinor’s photographs and awards on the wall. “He was just very, very proud,” McGinnis said. James Walker, an economics professor at IU who has known the Ostroms since 1986, said the respect was mutual, citing the dedication page in Elinor’s most famous book, “Governing the Commons.” “To Vincent,” it reads, “for his love and contestation.” “It tells you they had a very loving relationship but they also had one as
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SEE VINCENT, PAGE A3