University of Minnesota Archives’ exhibit, Beyond The Page: Preserving the Spirit of the University Through An Independent Student Press will be open from October 13, 2025 through January 30, 2026. During the academic year, supplementary blog posts featuring The Minnesota Daily and ways in which they went “beyond the page,” will be posted to celebrate its 125th anniversary. Stay tuned for more!

 

As a way to introduce incoming students to the University of Minnesota, the Daily prepared and printed the first Welcome Week edition in September 1949.  Along with a schedule of the week-long events, this issue introduced incoming freshmen to student participation in campus organizations, Greek life, and student government. It also highlighted an athletic preview, background on military units, and identified various services available during the school year, such as student housing and health care.

 

For the first two years, the Welcome Week edition remained in the same format and size as the newspaper. But by the early 1950s, it was adapted into a magazine. Continuing in this same layout for the next twenty years, the Daily reinstated their Welcome Week edition tabloid size in the early 1970s. 

 

The Welcome Week edition also began to create sections within the issue to highlight news features, editorials, Arts & Entertainment and Sports by the mid-1970s. Unique section covers were included, along with double page spreads, highlighting the Daily’s advancement into photo journalism. 

By 1992, with the change from Welcome Week to Campus Kick-off, the Daily retitled this special issue to the Fall Preview edition. It continued for over 10 years highlighting and documenting similar topics as Welcome Weeks of the past. 

 

To view more of the Welcome Week or Fall Preview editions, visit the University Digital Conservancy or check out the collection finding aid, Ariel and The Minnesota Daily Student Newspaper and Magazine collection, for more Daily archival material.