2022 –聽As Augsburg鈥檚 Department of Sociology celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, it is a good time to look back at how the program began. Or, rather, at聽who聽began it.
Joel Torstenson came to Augsburg as a history major from rural West Central Minnesota.聽 After graduating in 1938, he worked in education for Farmer鈥檚 Co-ops. He began teaching part-time at Augsburg upon earning a master鈥檚 degree in history and sociology.
During the war years, he became involved in the Peace Movement and participated in establishing a cooperative farm community, which led to employment with Midland Cooperatives as an educational director and community organizer. In the fall of 1947, President Christensen invited him back to Augsburg to develop its programs in social work and sociology while completing his PhD in sociology at the University.
Besides the introductory courses in sociology and social problems, he added courses in sociological theory, social psychology, racial and inter-group relations, and rural sociology.
鈥淎s the instructor in rural sociology,鈥� Torstenson writes, 鈥淚 sought to relate my experiences in the rural communities of my early life and those as an elementary school teacher in a rural community.鈥�
His involvement in rural community life and culture continued through his service on the American Lutheran Church鈥檚 Rural Life Commission and through representing Augsburg at a conference on Lutheran Higher Education in Service to Rural People. 鈥淭hrough such participation in rural life activities, I sought to enliven my teaching with reflections on contemporary developments in rural America.鈥�
In the 1950s, Torstenson became involved with Church-Labor relations. 鈥淔rom my very beginnings as college student and resident of Minneapolis, I became intensely interested in the momentous labor-management struggle that led to the historic Truck Drivers Strike in 1934.鈥� This interest led him to serve on and later chair a Church-Labor Committee to address the question of what role organized religion and church-related colleges play in the struggle. One of the consequences of his work on the committee was his decision to add a course in industrial relations to the sociology curriculum.聽 鈥淎gain, the labor leaders visited the class and told their story, thereby adding some additional drama to the class deliberation.鈥�
When Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed in 1968, Joe Bash, director of youth programs for the American Lutheran Church, picked up the phone and asked people what college would be responsive to some of his ideas. Torstenson鈥檚 name arose again and again.
Out of their conversation 鈥淭he Crisis Colony鈥� was born. Students lived on the north side of Minneapolis, first in public housing and later in an abandoned synagogue, while learning from people who lived and worked in the community. Led by Torstenson and Gordon Nelson, it became an intense summer program first, then a semester program, where students were immersed in the culture. This program became the Metro Urban Studies Term, or 鈥淢UST,鈥� which was the first academic program of HECUA, the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs, which today is a key element for all urban studies majors and is one of the premier interdisciplinary experiential education programs in the nation.
Torstenson鈥檚 sabbatical to Scandinavia led to the development of the Scandinavian Urban Studies Term, or 鈥淪UST,鈥� the second program of HECUA.
Today, the legacy of Joel Torstenson lives on through the sociology and metro-urban studies majors, the Center for Service, Work, and Learning, HECUA, and the college-wide 鈥淓ngaging Minneapolis鈥� requirement. Indeed, the fingerprint of Joel Torstenson will be a permanent marking at 海角社区聽for generations to come.
In his pursuit of racial justice and human rights, these programs provided a natural foundation for urban studies, which surfaced 20 years later. 鈥淭he more we became involved in urban affairs, the more we began to ask the question鈥攚hat is the appropriate role of a liberal arts college located at the center of an exploding metropolis?鈥�
Torstenson used his sabbatical during the academic year of 1965-66 to explore this question. He visited east coast schools that had urban studies programs. Upon his return, he wrote a position paper, 鈥淭he Liberal Arts College in the Modern Metropolis鈥� which built the case for a metro-urban studies program at Augsburg. In it, he provided the rationale for an interdisciplinary program that would actively take advantage of the Minneapolis location.
Torstenson鈥檚 work also gave birth to the college-wide requirement that started as the 鈥淯rban Concern,鈥� which was succeeded by the 鈥淐ity Perspective,鈥� and is now known as the 鈥淓ngaging Minneapolis鈥� requirement.
The objectives set before Torstenson in developing the sociology major were: 1) to help students attain a better understanding of society; 2) to prepare students for social service, graduate training in social work or sociology, and 3) to explore the relevance of Christianity to effective social service.
鈥淚n developing the department of sociology,鈥� Torstenson writes in his memoirs,聽Takk for Alt:聽 A Life Story, 鈥淚 consciously sought to promote a rigorous and dispassionate, as well as a sympathetic understanding of society, the human community, and personality. I thought it important for both student and teacher to wrestle with the tension between a 鈥榬igorous and dispassionate鈥� quest for societal understanding, and the more 鈥榗ompassionate and sympathetic鈥� concern for the fate of the human community.鈥�