NEW FACULTY: DR. OLAF KUHLKE

If you’re looking to satisfy your wanderlust, a solitary road trip in the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic is about as adventurous as it gets. For Dr. Olaf Kuhlke, having grown up in a dense cityscape in Germany, it’s exactly what he was looking for in 1995. What was already an incredible trip to Canada fundamentally changed his outlook on creativity and shifted his career towards climate change and sustainability.

Today, as Chair of the Arts Entrepreneurship Department, Kuhlke puts his vision into action. This fall he will re-envision the current Entrepreneurial Studies major to become a Bachelor of Science program in Creative Entrepreneurship. The requirements will be streamlined and restructured to include sustainability and climate change. Kuhlke intends to provide opportunities for students to put their learnings into action through incubator programs. “All of these changes are directly informed by my experience at the Family Freedom Center in Duluth, Minnesota, where I have been providing entrepreneurship workshops to youth in the community,” states Kuhlke.

Kuhlke’s intention for his MCAD graduates is to equip them with everything they may need for their future, including building confidence in presenting and teaching youth in their own community. He has had success in shaping educational programs. For a decade at the University of Minnesota–Duluth, he included student input to create a degree in Cultural Entrepreneurship, taking a holistic approach by bringing creativity into the mix in a way that simply does not exist in a traditional, business-school setting.

While Kuhlke considers photography and filmmaking to be his main tool, his true passion lies in the art of persuasion. He describes his own process as crafting immersive, memorable experiences for others, which leads to action. For his own work, he travels to the Alaskan Arctic to assist in developing a sensitive, accessible alternative to destructive tourism. Kuhlke’s solution is to create a virtual reality for tourists through the eyes of the Indigenous peoples who have watched climate change drastically transform their landscape. This documentation will also be an archive for future generations, and preserve the history of these Indigenous cultures.

In his personal time, Kuhlke enjoys attending music festivals, cooking for friends, and playing bass guitar. He has a particular interest in heavy metal history and culture, seeing it through his same holistic, creative, and economic view he has in his work.

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