A statue honoring the late Nobel Prize-winning distinguished professor was unveiled during a dedication ceremony Nov. 12 behind Woodburn Hall. It will be the first statue of a woman on the IU Bloomington campus.

Ostrom is known worldwide for another first: being the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in economics. She was a pioneering social scientist and one of the world's preeminent scholars on the management of common pool resources, and she spent years working and teaching on the IU Bloomington campus. She and her husband, Vincent, founded what is now known as the Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, a multidisciplinary research hub focused on how local, national and global governance processes can be designed to enhance human well-being, while also promoting democratic principles and sustainable resource management.

IU commissioned a statue of Ostrom as part of its Bicentennial Bridging the Visibility Gap project, which aims to tell the unknown or underappreciated stories of women and underrepresented minorities who've helped build and strengthen the university. The statue joined a historical marker that was placed outside Woodburn Hall in October 2019. The area will be dedicated as the Ostrom Commons.