“The Professor Emeritus and former Director Of Scandinavian Studies on one of his legacies: The Sweden Today Program.”
Fifteen or so years ago, College president James Peterson asked Thorstensson to design a custom program to Sweden for Gustavus students. Thorstensson hesitated—among other reasons, he was close to retirement. Then he thought, “Why not try to put together a program unlike all others that exist?”
The result is the unique and popular Sweden Today program: a semester in Sweden that even includes a stay above the Arctic Circle. The course immerses students in “both the northernmost and southernmost parts of this long country,” he says, from a few weeks in Lapland during the boreal winter to the extreme south of Sweden near the contiguous European continent in the spring. “From extreme white winter to verdancy and spring flowers,” Thorstensson says.
He also wanted student to experience all different aspects of Swedish culture and life—urban and rural, highbrow and more popular culture—as well as different kinds of nature and geography. And, he says, “They had to experience Sweden among Swedes, those whose ancestors had lived there for centuries and those who had recently made Sweden their home.”
A Swede himself, from a farm in Småland, Thorstensson came to Gustavus when he was 24. During their first few years here, he and his wife, Edi, were head residents in Uhler Hall. Today, almost 50 years later, they can see Uhler from their kitchen window, and near their front yard is the hill where Thorstensson learned to ski. “Fancy that. A Swede who learned to ski in the U.S.!” He still skis, and writes (in two languages), and stays active with Gustavus. He is pictured here in a sweater from another Nordic area, the Faroe Islands.
Now led by multiple professors, the Sweden Today program is still popular with students in all majors.