In the summer of 2025, a student team in the Office of Sustainability asked the question: How do we better communicate our sustainability leadership at UMN Morris to our student body and partners?
Henry Hietpas ’26 of Stillwater, Josie Barber ’27 of Shakopee, and Mary Landherr ’26 of Forest Lake put their heads together and came up with a couple of key strategies. The team noticed that one of Morris’s community leaders, Sydney Bauer ’19, had been sharing zines for several years with community members on a wide range of topics, from public health to public policy. The team decided that they would develop a zine focused on why Morris was a sustainability leader. The goal was to create something playful and informative that people would want to display on their desk or shelf.
What is a zine? A zine is typically a small-batch, independently published work that circulates less than 1,000 copies. It is often printed out on a piece of paper and folded creatively so that it reads like a little book. The zine they created includes information about campus solar power, wind power, zero-waste efforts, our Morris Model partnership, and more.
The zine is also featured on digital signage on campus. For example, when visitors enter the Welcome Center at UMN Morris, they are greeted with images and facts from the zine.
The team didn’t want to stop there. They further asked: How could we invite students to be a friend of sustainability? The answer took the form of fun bracelets that they shared with students. Attached to each bracelet was a QR code that would take students to a curated set of resources, including videos about UMN Morris and community leadership in sustainability. For example, a video featuring clean energy projects used in the Morris Model’s award-winning DOE prize application.
During Welcome Week 2025, the team passed out several hundred zines and bracelets to students to help advance sustainability communications on the campus. They are also handed bracelets and zines out during green tours and other sustainability events.