UMN Morris Mission and Vision
The University of Minnesota Morris is a unique campus, one of 30 Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC).
A student-centered educational environment, Morris is devoted to providing an engaging, challenging undergraduate experience that prepares graduates for careers, advanced degrees, flexibility in the work world of the future, lifelong learning, and global citizenship.
As a public college, Morris benefits from its relationship to the University of Minnesota—a major top-10 research university—and commits to accessibility.
Morris serves as an educational and cultural center for residents of west central Minnesota.
Mission
The University of Minnesota, Morris (UMM) provides a rigorous undergraduate liberal arts education, preparing its students to be global citizens who value and pursue intellectual growth, civic engagement, intercultural competence, and environmental stewardship.
As a public land-grant institution, UMM is a center for education, culture, and research for the region, nation, and world. UMM is committed to outstanding teaching, dynamic learning, innovative faculty and student scholarship and creative activity, and public outreach. Our residential academic setting fosters collaboration, diversity, and a deep sense of community.
—Approved by Campus Assembly April 2009
Strategic Visioning and Planning
Vision and Aspirations: Who We Want to Be
After a series of readings and discussions on the future of American higher education, the campus community was asked to imagine what UMN Morris could be 10 years from now. It answered with the following vision and aspirations:
Vision
The University of Minnesota Morris will be a national leader in collaborative and innovative 21st-century liberal arts education.
Grounded in our sense of history and place and our commitments to access and sustainability, we will integrate scholarly and creative work, community-building, and outreach into our rigorous academic programs.
Our diverse community will inspire and equip students to connect their passions to meaningful futures.
Aspirations
Honor our liberal arts tradition by preparing students to create and discover solutions to complex problems of the 21st century, through inquiry, community-engaged learning, and rigorous experiential projects across the curriculum, including integrated first-year and capstone experiences.
Strengthen our commitment to scholarship by supporting faculty, staff, and students in research and creative activities.
Develop integrated strategies to build and maintain an optimal and sustainable student body size while also recruiting and retaining high quality faculty and staff.
Ensure that UMM is a leader in environmental, social, and economic sustainability.
Acknowledge the first peoples of this land and this land’s history as a boarding school through curriculum, programming, and partnerships with Native students and communities, as well as through visual markers on campus.
Create a democratic community committed to open communication where students, faculty, staff, and local community members from all backgrounds are empowered to contribute to the decisions, infrastructure, and liberal arts education on UMM’s campus.
Provide full accessibility to all of UMM’s teaching, living, service, and learning spaces and technologies to create an inviting and usable environment for everyone on our campus.
Amplify UMM’s place as a center for education engaged with the region, state, nation, and world, and solidify its role within the University of Minnesota system so that it can strengthen and be strengthened by the system campuses.
—Endorsed November 2018, Campus Assembly