Arthur Harkins, professor emeritus in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development in the CIDE program, passed away on Wednesday. He was an associate professor and retired from OLPD in 2014.

Art came to the University in 1967 with a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas, and he was one of the first three Coordinators in the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA). He had also been a faculty member in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education (SPFE) and in the Master of Liberal Studies program.

Art was particularly interested in the relationship among three things: technology, education, and the workforce. During his career, he co-authored or co-edited five books, including Cultures of the Future and StoryTech: A Personalized Guide to the 21st Century. One of the projects in which he was most involved was StoryTech, a controlled imagination process he invented while studying the Shinto religion. The technique involves story telling using alterable variables. He was also deeply involved in a cross-college certificate in innovation studies, one of the first of its kind in the nation.  It was aimed at helping the University prepare “innovation workers.” Art also co-developed Leapfrog Institutes, an OLPD and CEHD program that worked to promote pilot projects and policy development focused on non-formal education, innovation, and the use of advanced hand-held learning devices.

Art taught both undergraduates and graduate students in OLPD in courses on knowledge systems, cultural models and simulations, and innovative systems thinking. In 2000, he received the Teaching Excellence Award from the College of Continuing Education.

For those of us who knew Art, he was truly an innovative thinker and will be sorely missed.

~ Frances Vavrus, OLPD Interim Department Chair

Service Details

Friday, May 20, 2016
Visitation 11am-1pm
Service   1pm

Kozlak-Radulovich Maple Grove Chapel
13745 Reimer Drive
Maple Grove, MN
55311, US
Phone: (763) 416-0016