University of Minnesota-Morris

Quick facts Location, Coordinates ... West Central School of Agriculture and Experiment Station Historic District U.S. National Register of Historic Places U.S. Historic district The former Girls' Dormitory (left) and Agricultural Hall (right) Show map of Minnesota Show map of the United States Location 600 East 4th Street, Morris, Minnesota Coordinates 45°35′25″N 95°54′0″W Area 42 acres (17 ha) Built 1899–1929 Architect Clarence H. Johnston Sr. , et al. Architectural style Bungalow/Craftsman NRHP reference number "}]]}">No. 02001707 [ 9 ] Designated HD January 15, 2003 Close Although UMN Morris officially opened its doors in 1960, the history of what became the current institution reaches to 1887. That year, the first building of the Morris Industrial School for Indians , an American Indian boarding school founded by Mother Mary Joseph Lynch , was constructed on the site and run by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy under contract to the US government. Beginning in 1898, the Office of Indian Affairs (today's Bureau of Indian Affairs ) took over operations to introduce a more progressive curriculum. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] The school closed in 1909, under a congressionally authorized program to reduce the number of boarding schools in preference for locating schools on reservations, so that families and communities would not be broken up. The campus was transferred to the State of Minnesota under the agreement that American Indians would always be admitted free of tuition; the current UMN Morris still follows this policy. [ 12 ] In 1910 the University of Minnesota established a coeducational residential high school on the campus called the West Central School of Agriculture (WCSA). This was one of four such schools established by the university in outstate Minnesota to provide agricultural and home economics education to rural youth. The complex also included an agricultural research station.

The WCSA operated for half a century, but declining enrollment in the late 1950s prompted the University of Minnesota to phase out its regional agricultural schools. The residents of the Morris region convinced the university to develop the campus as a four-year college. The University of Minnesota Morris opened in September 1960, phasing in college classes year by year while phasing out the last high school class, which graduated in 1963. [ 10 ] The only surviving building from the Morris Industrial School for Indians, an 1899 dormitory, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. [ 13 ] The oldest building on campus, it now serves as UMN Morris's Multi-Ethnic Resource Center. In 2003 a historic district consisting of the dormitory and 10 buildings from the WCSA period was listed on the National Register as the West Central School of Agriculture and Experiment Station Historic District. It was listed for having national significance in the themes of agriculture and education. [ 14 ] The district was nominated for being an excellent example of a residential agricultural high school, one of the longest running in the nation and one of the most intact. It was also a significant component of the University of Minnesota's nationally influential system of such facilities, and an important contributor to education and agriculture in west-central Minnesota. [ 10 ] The WCSA campus buildings were mostly designed by state architect Clarence H. Johnston Sr. in American Craftsman style and built in the 1910s and 20s.

The 11 contributing properties of the historic district consist of the Music Hall (1899, previously the Indian School boys' dormitory and now the Multi-Ethnic Resource Center), the Girls' Dormitory (1912, now Camden Hall), Spooner Hall (1912–13), the Cattle Barn (1914, now the Saddle Club Barn), the Engineering Building (1915, now the Welcome Center), the Dining Hall (1918, now Behmler Hall), Senior Hall (1920, now Blakely Hall), Agricultural Hall (1920–21, now John Q. Imholte Hall), the Infirmary (1923–24, now the Education Building), Junior Hall (1926, now Pine Hall), and the Seed House (1929). [ 10 ] [ 15 ]

Morris offers 35 majors and 32 minors, 13 education licensure areas, and nine pre-professional programs in education, the humanities, science and mathematics, and the social sciences. [ 16 ] According to U.S. News & World Report , the five most popular majors on campus are Psychology, General; English Language and Literature, General; Biology/Biological Sciences, General; Business Administration and Management, General; and Economics, General. [ 17 ] In 2025, U.S. News & World Report ranked UMN Morris 122nd in the "National Liberal Arts Colleges" list [ 17 ] and #7 in "Top Public Schools" for Liberal Arts Colleges. [ 18 ] Washington Monthly ranked UMN Morris the #15 "Best Bang for Your Buck" school in the Midwest in 2024. [ 19 ]