You probably wouldn’t have guessed that one of our very own University of Minnesota campuses is the state’s sustainable-living super school. For years, UMN–Morris students, staff and faculty have lead the charge on environmental sustainability, with a 130-acre campus that boasts solar arrays, two multi-million-dollar wind turbines (they power the entire campus on windy days), green-living residential dorms and more. Lots more.

Even cooler, UMN–Morris was nationally recognized as one of Sierra Magazine’s top 40 “Cool Schools” for 2018, ranking 33rd in the nation for their sustainable-living efforts. The best part? They’re also the top ranked campus in all of Minnesota.

When you combine the recognition with the endless investments, policies, curricula and research devoted to the environment, it’s easy to see how UMN–Morris is one of the prime places to study sustainability.

And UMN-Morris knows it. At the moment, the campus (about two and a half hours west of Minneapolis) offers two environmentally focused majors—one, Environmental Science, and the other, Environmental Studies. But now, they’re taking their efforts one step further with a brand new, free-standing minor for undergrads.

The Sustainability Leadership minor is an interdisciplinary program designed for students with their sights set on promoting and leading the multi-faceted conversation of environmental, social and economic sustainability in their personal and professional lives.

On a larger scale, the core coursework of the minor intends to provide students with the foundation and framework for deciding what “sustainability” actually means to them. Some of the projected learning outcomes include knowing the ins and outs on the problems, policies and interactions between humans and the environment, having the confidence and knowledge to publicly discuss issues of sustainability, and understanding various leadership and decision-making perspectives.

Over the course of the program, students will participate in community-engaged projects, a series of workshops, and choose between a wide-range of relevant electives. They even include (and highly encourage) the option to study abroad.

But who’s it for? As long as there’s an interest in the ever-important (and increasingly pertinent) world or sustainability, there’s “perfect-fit” potential for all students of all backgrounds—no matter how unrelated their main area of study seems to be.

Enrolled students are required to complete a minimum of 20 credits in the program for the Fall 2019 semester, and have required courses that cover climate change, moral responsibility and ecology (on the sustainability side, that is), and leadership courses that dial in on organizational behavior, systems of oppression and management theory.

Despite the new program and pre-existing initiatives, our sister campus isn’t slowing down in their sustainable-living efforts any time soon. With compost containers in every residence hall and academic building across campus, low-input paper towels, and a three-year technical partnership with a rural community in Germany, we’re willing to bet they’re just getting started.

“It’s a big goal,” Sandy Olson-Loy, the vice chancellor of student affairs, says. “But I think we’re on the path to carbon neutrality by 2020.”

To learn more about  UMN–Morris’ sustainability initiatives, click here.