Kris Binard

I was born in Indiana and lived there until I was 7. At that time my parents divorced and my Mom married a Frenchman in the restaurant business. I grew up with great food and an opportunity to live in many different cities across the country. Each year I attended a different school and by my senior year I had had lots of different experiences. My passions were dance, music and theater and I had the opportunity to travel throughout the United States with different performing groups. During my senior year, I competed at the state drama competition in Texas. Because of these experiences I wanted to pursue a degree in musical theater. University of Texas had a great program but my parents were moving to St. Louis, MO and I had never lived there before. I decided to attend the University of Missouri, which also had a great music, dance, and theater program. While at Mizzou, I was involved with student government and student programming boards - it was my first experience in student affairs although I did not realize it at the time! During my sophomore year I changed my degree program to merchandising and design and decided to transfer to Colorado State University because of their reputation - it was a wonderful decision. I immediately became involved on campus in a variety of different organizations and eventually became the vice president of the Associated Students of Colorado State University (ASCSU). The 2 ½ years I attended CSU paved the way for my career in student affairs. I also met my future husband in ASCSU although I did not know it at the time!

After graduation I traveled for three years while I worked in the restaurant business. I spent my summers in the North and my winters in the South. It was a lot of fun! When I finally decided to "settle" down, I attended graduate school at CSU in Student Affairs in Higher Education. I received a MS in 1994 and began working at the Community College of Denver as the Events, Activities and Leadership Coordinator. In 1998, I became the Director of Student Life and the Longs Peak Student Center at Front Range Community College-Larimer Campus. In 2004, I became the Dean of Student Services at FRCC - Boulder County Campus, and in 2005 I moved back to the Larimer Campus as the Dean of Student Services. Throughout my career I worked on my doctorate in Educational Leadership and Innovation and received my Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Denver in 2007.

I live in Longmont in a 100 year old house with my husband, Ron Carlson, and our two boys, Cameron who is going into 4th grade and Connor who is going into 2nd grade this fall (2009). Ron and I met at CSU in 1987 and became good friends. We traveled all over the US together and were "roomies" in graduate school. In 1995 we realized that maybe we should be more than friends and started dating, we are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary this year!

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