The University of Minnesota Morris has worked with partners throughout the state to imagine how we strengthen communities and economies in rural Minnesota. Together, several hundred visitors have come to the campus in the last few years to learn more at events and share their perspectives. These partner collaborations have focused on a range of topics, including rural democracy, cooperative models for solving community challenges, clean energy development, and emerging economic opportunities, like green ammonia and energy storage.
UMN Morris Chancellor Janet Schrunk Ericksen states, “At UMN Morris, we are so thankful for our partnerships and the shared work we have been able to advance together. We deeply appreciate, too, that these partners have championed Morris as a rural sustainability leader. Several of our Morris community leaders have been featured in state and national media about our community partnership work, including the Reimagine Rural podcast a few months ago, about how we are trying to work across political differences to build economic opportunities for rural Minnesota.”
During 2024, UMN Morris worked with the West Central Initiative (WCI) and partners to support rural democracy events. This included a screening of the film, Join or Die, which reflected on the work of political scientist Robert Putnam, and explored America’s decade-long decline in our connections with each other. The film explored questions like: what makes democracy work? Why is America’s democracy in crisis and what can we do about it? UMN Morris also worked with WCI on several events focused on community leadership, clean energy policy, and election integrity.
In August 2025, UMN Morris worked with WCI, CoMinnesota, Minnesota Farmers Union, and others to launch the inaugural Minnesota Cooperative Summit. The sold-out event featured a wide range of speakers across sectors, including credit, ethanol production, food stores, financing, housing, childcare, home health care, small business, utilities, agriculture, social services, ethanol production, and more. Learn more about the Summit.
In October 2025, UMN Morris worked again with WCI to host the Rural Democracy Summit, the goal of the Summit was to explore the roots of our polarization and find paths forward that help improve our communities thrive and reduce divisions. Thought leaders from across the country came to Morris to share their ideas, including former Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Kathy Cramer, an academic and author who has written widely about rural voters, Tom Horner, a leader in Minnesota who crosses political boundaries, Mark Ritchie, a former Minnesota Secretary of State, and Lori Sturdevant, a longtime political writer, observer, and historian.