The Department of Soil, Water, and Climate is located on the traditional, ancestral, and contemporary lands of Indigenous people. The Dakota people, along with the Ojibwe people, are the Indigenous peoples of the land now called Minnesota.
The mission of the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate is to advance the understanding of Earth system processes and the interaction among land, atmosphere, and water. Because of colonialism and racism, Native knowledge and traditional practices has not been widely recognized by academic gatekeepers.
The University of Minnesota is a Land Grant University, and as such we have benefitted from the cession of land by the federal government for the creation of the University.
By offering this land acknowledgment, we affirm tribal sovereignty and will work to hold the University accountable to Indigenous peoples and nations.