William Bill Stewart

Stewart took charge of the newly developed Minority Student Program (MSP) in 1972. Stewart faced numerous challenges in his first year at UMN Morris, particularly the dual questions of how to best serve the needs of currently enrolled minority students and then how to build programming that would continue to attract students of color. Stewart would later remember that only one percent of the total student population were students of color when he started at Morris in 1972.[8] The goal of institution building became a top priority for Stewart's office and the MSP was charged with creating programs that would target the needs of minority students while remaining open and accessible to all.
     During Stewart’s first few months on the job, he set goals for MSP, outlining missions and highlighting key objectives for the program's future--one of these goals was creating programming that emphasized intercultural student interaction, both formally through planned events and informally through everyday interactions. Stewart would later remember that the intent of the programming was to change the cultural landscape and the lives of Morris students, recalling, "It was a complex system that has to be changed as the students interacted with it."[9] The first major program developed under Bill’s tenure at MSP was World Touch Cultural Heritage Week (WTCHW). This was one of a number of Stewart's programs that would become a campus mainstay, and in this case, Ida Stewart and members of the MSP staff were key contributors.[10] WTCHW started as a week-long series of programs highlighting and bridging cultural difference and over the years it has evolved to become a program that has brought in guest speakers and performers throughout the academic year.
Some of the most well-known people to have visited the Morris campus for World Touch are speakers such as Vine Deloria, Jr. (1975), Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt (1977), Chief Dan George (1978), Angela Davis (1984), and Ada Deer (1985). More recently, Ijeoma Oluo visited in 2021.[11]  Bill’s motto for WTCHW was, “touch my world and I’ll touch yours.” Stewart's philosophy has become the foundational basis for much of UMN Morris's cultural programming.
    Another program that has become an integral part of the student experience on campus is Gateway. First launched in the summer of 1995, Gateway is a summer program for incoming underrepresented students and is designed to assist students, particularly Indigenous and Black students, in developing and sustaining both social and academic support systems. Gateway as a program was created as a direct result of the Halloween Incident and has seen as of 2022 a total of 624 students pass through the program.[12] 
    In November 1993, in response to the ‘Halloween Incident’  the Black Student Union (BSU) organized protests in the halls of the Student Center. Stewart, a longtime advisor to the BSU and coordinator of programs during Black History Month, took leadership and initiated efforts to ease racial tensions, eliminate racist acts on campus and increase the level of diversity.[13]
Stewart’s effectiveness in dealing with incidents was not what made him a unique and welcoming face to so many students. Rather, it was the programs that he created, his emphasis on being inclusive and finally the quality of his leadership which fostered a campus culture of which he ultimately grew proud. In an exit interview, Stewart said, “UMM has succeeded in diversity if it continues to evolve and change to reflect the community of Morris and the country as a whole.”[14]