Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 70.84
Liaison Troy Goodnough
Submission Date June 2, 2015
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

University of Minnesota, Morris
EN-13: Community Stakeholder Engagement

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.00 / 2.00 Troy Goodnough
Sustainability Director
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution adopted a framework for community stakeholder engagement in governance, strategy and operations?:
No

A brief description of the policies and procedures that ensure community stakeholder engagement is applied systematically and regularly across the institution’s activities:

The University of Minnesota, Morris convenes the Chancellor's Advisory Council (CAC). The CAC meets during the year to advise the Chancellor and campus regarding campus strategy, operations and community engagement. The CAC has broad representation from local and regional stakeholders.

Morris is also home to the Center for Small Towns. CST works with stakeholders in the west central Minnesota region. CST also has a Advisory Committee with members from diverse areas of community life -- from education to media to regional development groups. CST engages Morris students with projects that are defined by community members and that support building more vibrant and prosperous rural communities.


A brief description of how the institution identifies and engages community stakeholders, including any vulnerable or underrepresented groups:
---

List of identified community stakeholders:
---

A brief description of successful community stakeholder engagement outcomes from the previous three years:

Some examples:

Katie Winter ’15, partnered with the Sustainable Tourism and Resilient Communities portion of the Southwest Regional Sustainable Development Partnership through the University of Minnesota Extension to create a showcase event for local artists. Winter worked with Extension employee David Fluegel, and helped to put together the two part series, Local Color that brought together community members and local artists.

Charlie Diamond ’15, helped gather information on funding sources for parks, pools, and playgrounds in small towns throughout Minnesota. Diamond collaborated with Jacki Anderson, Emily Zandt, and Erin Smith, from the Upper Minnesota Valley Regional Development Commission to better understand how communities can fund, maintain, and preserve their community recreation space.

Sam Gill ’16, and the Morris Area Chamber of Commerce organized and put together the Non-Profit Community Expo, and Prairie Pioneer days - both staples of the community event calendar. Gill was excited to be able to help promote and improve events that bring the community together and help create the unique community atmosphere in Morris.

Benjamin Osmand ’15, was involved organizing Green Island, Wadena’s new community tourism project. Green Island is a partially public space that was once a 60 acre family farm that has been transformed back into its original forested form. The community aims to boost tourism and better stimulate the area’s economy with attraction that preserves their natural land and resources.

Ricky Rojas ’16 worked with UMM Professor Arne Kildegard to gather and analyze data on energy use at Minnesota’s rural electric cooperatives.Professor Kildegaard and Rojas created a regression model that helps to analyze the feasibility of different sustainable options at each rural electric cooperative. The pair’s goal is to create positive and environmentally friendly options at the cooperatives throughout rural Minnesota.


The website URL where information about the institution’s community stakeholder engagement framework and activities is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

More information about CST projects can be found here:
http://www.morris.umn.edu/cst/studentproject/


The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.