UMN Morris Land Acknowledgment

The University of Minnesota Morris is located on land that has been cared for and called home by the Dakota people, and later the Ojibwe people and other Native peoples from time immemorial. By offering this land acknowledgment, we affirm tribal sovereignty and express respect for Native peoples and nations.

By offering this land acknowledgment, we affirm tribal sovereignty and express respect for Native peoples and nations. The University of Minnesota Morris is located along Owobopte Wakpa—a place from which Dakota turnips have been dug river—on the edge of mashkode akiing—prairie land. This land has been cared for and called home by the Dakota people, and later the Ojibwe people and other Native peoples, from time immemorial. Our state’s name, Minnesota, comes from the Dakota name for this region, Mni Sota Makoce—the land where the waters reflect the skies. Acknowledging the land and our history in this place is an offering of solidarity with and respect for Native nations and peoples. In doing so, we—The University of Minnesota Morris—reaffirm our commitment to our responsibilities rooted in the history of our campus site as a Native American boarding school, our distinctive mission as a public liberal arts college within Minnesota’s land-grant university, and our federal recognition as a Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution.