PITT LAUNCHES LECTURE SERIES ON ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUES

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 22 -- A lecture and discussion of the problems encountered by developing country communities in managing and using renewable natural resources will launch the Saul M. Katz Annual Lectureship on Social and Economic Development at the University of Pittsburgh, at 2 p.m., Friday, Jan. 29, in Room 2K56 of the Forbes Quadrangle Building on the Oakland campus.

Elinor Ostrom, Ph.D., Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science at Indiana University and immediate past president of the American Political Science Association, will inaugurate the series. The series is co-sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) , International Management Development Institute (IMDI), and Center for American Politics and Society.

Ostrom's lecture is entitled, "Coping With Tragedies of the Commons," a reference to the problems (tragedies) associated with the overuse of renewable natural resources.

She will present a second paper, "The Contested Role of Heterogeneity," a report on recent research results from 27 community-managed forests in Nepal, at 10 a.m., Saturday, Jan. 30 in the same venue. A presentation on the research conducted at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, which she co-directs at Indiana University, will be given at 2:30 p.m.

The lecture series was endowed by Saul M. Katz, Ph.D., who was considered an international authority on economic and social development, and who had a special interest in the implementation of development policies, programs and projects. Katz joined the teaching staff at GSPIA in 1960, and was named professor emeritus in 1986. He died in 1995.

All lectures and presentations are free and open to the public. For more information, call 412-624-6660.

-30-

1/22/99/shg