{"id":4165,"date":"2012-08-13T10:31:55","date_gmt":"2012-08-13T10:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/?page_id=4165"},"modified":"2025-09-15T18:44:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T18:44:35","slug":"torstenson","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/sociology\/torstenson\/","title":{"rendered":"Torstenson Lecture Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 17th Annual Torstenson Lecture in Sociology<\/h2>\n

Tuesday, October 28, 2025<\/strong>
\n5:30 p.m. in the East Commons, Christensen Center<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America<\/span><\/i><\/h3>\n

\n

\"Photo
Michelle S. Phelps, Ph.D.\u2014Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, Minneapolis became the epicenter of fiery protests over police violence and the failures of police reform. In response, members of the city council pledged to \u201cend\u201d the police department. The Minneapolis Reckoning tells the story of how the city appeared to arrive at the brink of police abolition after years of Black Lives Matter activism\u2014and what happened after. This account of the city\u2019s struggles over what constitutes real accountability, justice, and safety offers a vitally important picture of the possibilities and limits of challenging police power in America.<\/span><\/p>\n

Michelle S. Phelps<\/strong> is Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the coauthor of Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice<\/em> (Oxford, 2017) and the author of The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America<\/em> (Princeton, 2024). Her award-winning research on the criminal legal system has been published in leading disciplinary and interdisciplinary academic journals and featured in major media outlets including the Washington Post<\/em>, TIME <\/em>Magazine, and The<\/em> New Yorker<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the Torstenson Lecture Series<\/h2>\n

As a way to celebrate the life-work of º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½\u00a0Department of Sociology founder Joel Torstenson, the Torstenson Lecture in Sociology promotes the field of sociology, and Augsburg\u2019s contribution to the field, through the sharing and exchange of ideas between the Augsburg community and invited guest lecturers.<\/p>\n

The \u201cFather\u201d of Sociology at Augsburg<\/h3>\n
\"A
Joel and Frances Torstenson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joel Torstenson came to Augsburg as a history major from rural West Central Minnesota. After graduating in 1938, he worked in education for farmer\u2019s co-ops. He began teaching part-time at Augsburg upon earning a master\u2019s degree in history and sociology.<\/p>\n

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 doctorate in sociology at the University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the instructor in rural sociology,\u201d Torstenson writes, \u201cI sought to relate my experiences in the rural communities of my early life and those as an elementary school teacher in a rural community.\u201d<\/p>\n

His involvement in rural community life and culture continued through his service on the American Lutheran Church\u2019s Rural Life Commission and through representing Augsburg at a conference on Lutheran higher education in service to rural people. \u201cThrough such participation in rural life activities, I sought to enliven my teaching with reflections on contemporary developments in rural America.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, Torstenson became involved with church-labor relations. \u201cFrom 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.\u201d 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. \u201cAgain, the labor leaders visited the class and told their story, thereby adding some additional drama to the class deliberation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s name arose again and again.<\/p>\n

Out of their conversation \u201cThe Crisis Colony\u201d 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 \u201cMUST,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Torstenson\u2019s sabbatical to Scandinavia led to the development of the Scandinavian Urban Studies Term, or \u201cSUST,\u201d the second program of HECUA.<\/p>\n

Today, the legacy of Joel Torstenson lives on through the sociology and metro-urban studies majors, the Strommen Center for Meaningful Work, HECUA, and the college-wide \u201cEngaging Minneapolis\u201d requirement. Indeed, the fingerprint of Joel Torstenson will be a permanent marking at º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½\u00a0for generations to come.<\/p>\n

In his pursuit of racial justice and human rights, these programs provided a natural foundation for urban studies, which surfaced 20 years later. \u201cThe more we became involved in urban affairs, the more we began to ask the question\u2014what is the appropriate role of a liberal arts college located at the center of an exploding metropolis?\u201d<\/p>\n

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, \u201cThe Liberal Arts College in the Modern Metropolis\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Torstenson\u2019s work also gave birth to the college-wide requirement that started as the \u201cUrban Concern,\u201d which was succeeded by the \u201cCity Perspective,\u201d and is now known as the \u201cEngaging Minneapolis\u201d requirement.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn developing the department of sociology,\u201d Torstenson writes in his memoirs,\u00a0Takk for Alt:\u00a0 A Life Story, \u201cI 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 \u2018rigorous and dispassionate\u2019 quest for societal understanding, and the more \u2018compassionate and sympathetic\u2019 concern for the fate of the human community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Past Lectures<\/h2>\n