Life in Minnesota IN 1851 did not much resemble Minnesota in 2026. For one thing, it wasn’t a state; it was a territory. And that territory was not paved with highways and illuminated with electricity. It was planked with wooden boards and brightened with lamps.

But not everything was different. There were books. And debate. And learning. And starting that year, the University of Minnesota.

To account for all the remarkable achievements the University has produced since then would be like trying to count every blade of grass in Minnesota: impossible. But since we are commemorating the University’s 175th year, we wanted to try with a list of 175 items, spanning the history of all our University of Minnesota campuses: Crookston, Duluth, Morris, Rochester, and the Twin Cities.

It’s not every day one gets to feel like Doc Brown and travel back in time. But minus the crazy hair, I did feel like him. I spent weeks in my DeLorean doing research for this issue and found innovations that put Doc’s flux capacitor to shame.

If I’m being honest, this was an easy assignment. One can stroll through any of our campuses and find accomplishments hanging in the air, like apples on a tree. The editing was the hard part.

Some of the alums who didn’t make this list would be well within their rights to protest righteously for leaving them out. Our only excuse is the tyranny of a quantity ceiling.

All of us who love the University have our own personal list of memories. I got my master’s degree at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs in 2016. Walking through that building on the West Bank felt like an invitation to become the person I’d always wanted to be.

I remember Professor Gary DeCramer teaching that to see a problem clearly, one should “get off the dance floor and get on the balcony” and look down at it from some distance. I remember Judge Eric Magnuson explaining how the law is meant to be a scalpel and not a broadsword. I recall the awe I felt walking into the common spaces with the uncommon names: the Humphrey Forum, Wilkins Room, Freeman Commons. Giants.

Those memories don’t go away. They’re now part of me.

How about you? I’d love to hear some of yours. Send me some of your formative University memories at umnalumnimag@umn.edu and we’ll run them in a future edition.

It’s fun to imagine the year 2201, 175 years from now, when the alumni community will commemorate our 350th anniversary. Life will look even more different, in ways we can’t conceive. But one thing is a lock: UMN alums will continue working in myriad ways to better the lives of everyone. It won’t take a historian like Ken Burns to document the ways—just the descendants of alums like you, sharing our common history.

Adam Wahlberg (M.P.A. ’16) can be reached at umnalumnimag@umn.edu.

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