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Elinor Ostrom wins nobel prize in Economic Science
People rely upon a great variety of common resources, from fisheries and forests, to groundwater supplies and the atmosphere. Elinor Ostrom, the co-founder and senior research director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University was just awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her pioneering work in the governance of Commons. Prior to her work, conventional wisdom was that Commons would inevitably result in overuse and collapse, with the only policy options being privatization or central governmental control. Ostrom was able to demonstrate that in a variety of settings across the globe, people are able to collectively self-govern their resources to avoid these tragedies without either privatization or central control. As the International Society for the Study of Commons stated "Ostrom's work teaches us novel lessons about the deep mechanisms that sustain cooperation in human societies."
In spring 2010, Josh Tenenberg will be teaching TGH 303 Global Challenges: Governing the Commons, as he did in 2008 and 2009. Tenenberg spent Autumn 2006 at Indiana University, where he completed the Program for Advanced Study in Comparative Institutional Analysis and Development at Ostrom's Workshop. Using Ostrom's work as a foundation, this course takes the following questions as its focus: Given the diversity of Commons and people, what social institutions do groups develop to govern their shared Commons? Which governance structures promote sustained resource use in the long-term, and which have led to resource degradation and collapse? In this course, students will explore a variety of Commons, local and global, and investigate a Commons of their choosing in depth for their term paper.
The Nobel prize announcement:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2009/info.pdf
Tenenberg's course homepage from Spring 2009:
http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/tgh303/s09/
3rd Annual Global Honors Colloquium featured in Inside Track
UWT Inside Track May 26, 2009
Top Row: Christopher Thomas, Claudia Gorbman - Director 2006-2009, Joel Kady, Meagan Murphy Ross, Ciara O'Connell, Jazarae Heinzman. Bottom Row: Tanya Ulsted - Program Administrator, Sam Adams, Kylene Yumul, Rachel Hug, Julie Turley.
Around the world: Global scholars
The world becomes a smaller, more complicated place when you look at it from another's perspective. This academic year, senior students in Global Honors researched disparate pieces of the world, discovered much about them and presented their observations at the annual Global Honors Colloquium last week. Assembled friends, faculty and family members heard students' global perspectives gained from their travels and their coursework in Global Honors.
Chancellor Spakes kicked off the colloquium, saying that all UW Tacoma programs demonstrate high standards, but Global Honors raises the bar with this year's in-depth, cross-cultural research.
Claudia Gorbman, director of Global Honors, said she was impressed with the professional expertise and high quality of the presentations, and that they showed creativity, courage and erudition.
Each student had a few minutes to present some of the fruits of their senior theses, using photos, charts, video and narrative. The participating students included:
Ciara O'Connell, "Fighting Hate Radio" O'Connell reported on her research of hate propaganda radio broadcasts in Rwanda's civil war, which contributed to between 800,000 and 1 million deaths. She explored the effectiveness of propaganda and how it can be blocked. O'Connell is headed for graduate studies at the Irish Center for Human Rights after Commencement.
Jazarae Heinzman, "NAFTA and the Maquiladoras Along the Mexican Border" Many workers in maquiladoras - factories in free-trade zones on the Mexican side of the border with the United States - live in communities that lack electricity, roads and basic sanitation, with polluted water and illegal dumping all around them. Despite the promises of the North American Free Trade Act, "NAFTA benefits only the owners and managers of the maquiladoras," Heinzman said.
Joel Kady, "Emirati Sovereign Wealth: Fidelity to Investment Returns" Kady went to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on a William J. Clinton scholarship, to study economics and politics. He reported on the immense wealth of the UAE and what has been done with it and made a forceful case for greater American acceptance of the UAE as financial partners.
Julie Turley, "Killing History: The Influences of Slavery and World War II on the Death Penalty in the United States and Europe" Turley's thesis was based on the premise that a primary influence on the continued popularity of the death penalty in the Unites States is our history of slavery. In Europe, she argued, the combined experience of World War II has been largely responsible for the EU's strong opposition to capital punishment.
Rachel Hug, "Let the Dawn Break Down Upon Us: The Spirituality of Nonviolence" Hug presented an argument for nonviolence as a response to the world's problems, saying that violence is described as a "rational" mode, and that the world needs more of the "irrational love" that can maintain nonviolence even under the threat of brutality.
Kylene Yumul, "Notes on a Cuban Revolution" Yumul traveled to Cuba intending to prove that the Cuban Revolution was a success, but found herself beset by the contradictions she found. She documented her experience and thoughts in a personal documentary. There are no simple answers, and the world is not black and white, but rather a rainbow, she reflected. Yumul has been accepted into the Peace Corps and will serve in South America after graduation.
Christopher Thomas, "Rice Farming in Sierra Leone: A Snapshot of Successes and Impediments to a Sustainable System" Thomas worked with farmers during his study abroad experience in Sierra Leone, learning how rural farmers grow rice, the main staple. He described native methods, which include slash-and-burn and fallowing to improve soil quality. Thomas described new strains of rice particularly suited to individual locales that could double the farmers' yields.
Samantha Adams, "Cinema as a Political Tool for Gender Equality in Iran" In Iran, women's issues are rarely discussed in public because of the strict Islamic theocracy, but there is a growing trend to portray women's issues on film. Adams sees cinema as a possible forum for real discussions. She described several Iranian films, and showed a clip from one in which a woman is rebuked and then divorced by her husband for riding a bicycle.
Meagan Murphy Ross, "The Rural Farmer at the Global Table" One child dies every six seconds from hunger and related causes, Murphy Ross said in her presentation. She compared small farms to large corporate farms in the United States and China.
