Radical Roots : How One Professor Transformed a University

Radical Roots: How One Professor Changed a University's Legacy tells the story of Joel Torstenson, a sociology professor at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the 1960s, Torstenson challenged his university to embrace its urban setting and to design its curricular, co-curricular, and community engagement programs to advance its mission of “Education for service.” The compelling story of Torstenson’s legacy at Augsburg over the past 60 years offers lessons for colleges and universities across the country committed to democratic engagement in their work at the intersections of mission and place.

Augsburg University's saga as an urban settlement has not always been embraced by the university. Though location and place are central to the university’s identity, it is not sufficient to explain the integrative power of the university’s character. For that purpose, it is critical that place be understood through the lens of Augsburg’s academic mission and work. This integrated view of place and mission required a new way of imagining the university’s core work of educating students.

The purpose of this book is two-fold. The first is to document and celebrate the legacy of Professor Joel Torstenson, and to understand the impact of this legacy’s inception, evolution, and current manifestations and impact at Augsburg and in the wider world. Professor Torstenson cared deeply about the public purpose of higher education, and Torstenson’s model for what this public purpose might look like prompted massive transformation in Augsburg University’s trajectory. The resulting experiments in education and commitment to the city flowered into a legacy that has spurred Augsburg University to create an innovative model for 21st Century education. This model has impacted everything from student learning and community life, to teaching and curricular structure, to the public mission of the institution and its presence in the city and world. Torstenson’s creative―and even radical―work in the 1960s and '70s has been carried through the decades by continued innovation in teaching and learning based in experiential education, and a commitment to place and community building. This legacy has simultaneously advanced the public purpose and mission of the University.

Secondly, this book shares what are some of the lessons learned from fifty years of innovation following Torstenson’s vision, with the hope that these lessons might serve the broader community of colleges, universities, faculty, staff, and students engaged in similar pursuits. Augsburg’s innovative experiential education, place-based community engagement, and public and anchor institution work has been and will continue to be a model for other institutions. We believe that Torstenson’s legacy, and the lessons learned through the years of its evolution, has lessons to teach and models to follow for our sibling institutions across the United States.

The volume includes discussion prompts and questions after each section. There is also a companion website (www.augsburg.edu/radicalroots) that includes additional resources related to the volume's themes.

Perfect for course such as: Higher Education and Democracy in the United States; Principles of Experiential Education; Place Matters: Higher Education and Community Engagement; Universities as Anchor Institutions in their Communities; Introduction to Citizen Professionalism: Leading in the 21st Century; Public Work, Social Responsibility, and Vocation in a World of Extremes; Accompaniment: Developing Democratic Skills and Fostering Healing with Communities; Curricular Innovations in Higher Education; and Principles of Higher Education Pedagogy

Green Bouzard is a freelance musician and editor. She formerly worked at Augsburg University in the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship.

Kathleen M. Clark, DNP is an Associate Professor of Nursing and the Executive Director of the Augsburg Health Commons. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire and both a Masters of Art in Transcultural Nursing and a Doctorate of Nursing Practice in Transcultural Leadership from Augsburg University. She began her career at Augsburg in 2009 and has focused her scholarship and teaching efforts on caring for marginalized populations, developing experiential learning experiences to center the learning moments on people with lived experiences voices, and creating changes to address health inequities. She has led and expanded the university’s efforts at the Augsburg Health Commons, which are nurse-led drop-in centers located in local communities that care for marginalized populations such as people experiencing homelessness, poverty, and immigration. Katie currently also serves on the Mission and Identity Division at Augsburg.

Timothy D. Pippert, Ph.D. currently serves as the Joel Torstenson Endowed Professor of Sociology and the Executive Director of Augsburg Family Scholars. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Nebraska and joined the faculty at Augsburg in 1999. He teaches a variety of courses from Introduction to Sociology to the Senior Seminar and Keystone and has published research on fictive kin relationships among men without homes, the accuracy of college and university photographic representations of diversity in recruitment materials, and the impact of the Bakken oil boom on the residents of northwestern North Dakota. In 2022, he worked with students in the Sociology Senior Seminar and Keystone to envision, design, and fundraise for Augsburg Family Scholars. The program, designed to support students with backgrounds in the foster care system, was launched in September 2022.

Paul C. Pribbenow, Ph.D. is the 10th president of Augsburg University, an institution affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and located in heart of Minneapolis. Since joining Augsburg in 2006, Pribbenow has enhanced the College’s role as an active community partner in its urban setting and has led a comprehensive strategic planning process known as Augsburg150, which names the university’s signature commitments to equity, inclusion, and community engagement. Pribbenow also has led unprecedented fundraising efforts at Augsburg, including $55 million to build the Hagfors Center for Science, Business, and Religion, a signature academic building; and $129 million in the Sesquicentennial “Great Returns” campaign.

Pribbenow serves on the national boards of Campus Compact and the Coalition for Urban and Metropolitan Universities. He also is active in the Anchor Institutions Task Force. Locally, he chairs the Cedar-Riverside Partnership and serves on the Executive Committee of the Minnesota Private College Council. Before coming to Augsburg, Pribbenow served as president of Rockford College (now Rockford University) in Rockford, Illinois. He also has served as research fellow for the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College (Indiana); dean for College Advancement and secretary of the Board of Trustees at Wabash College; vice president of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and associate dean of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

Pribbenow holds a BA from Luther College (Iowa), and an MA (1979) and PhD (1993) in social ethics from the University of Chicago. He received the Distinguished Service Award at Luther College in 2008; the William Burke Award for Presidential Leadership in Experiential Education in 2012; the Professional Fundraiser of the Year from the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) in 2019; and the University of Chicago Divinity School Alumnus of the Year Award in 2025.