Herbst Academic Center
- Title:
- Associate Athletic Director/Student Services
- Email:
- kris.livingston@colorado.edu
Kris Livingston is has been a staff member for the University of Colorado since 1997 and has served as the executive senior associate athletic director since 2021. A member of Rick George's executive team, she also manages CU's 11 sport supervisors. She was promoted to senior associate athletic director in 2018, associate athletic director in 2014 and assistant athletic director in 2010.
She oversees all of CU's academic support services, having been named its director on May 24, 2007. Located in the Herbst Academic Center, her area provides year-round academic support to all of CU’s approximately 350 student-athletes. She was an assistant director in the department before taking over as the director. She also serves as the sport supervisor for women’s basketball and in the past performed similar supervisory duties for CU’s lacrosse, soccer and skiing programs, and previously supervised the department’s diversity and inclusion programs.
The Herbst Academic Center continues to raise the bar for student-athlete success at CU. The CU student-athletes first achieved a cumulative 3.0 grade point average in the Spring of 2020 and haven't looked back. In Fall 2024, CU's 10th straight semester over a 3.0, the CU student-athletes went over the 3.2 GPA mark both for the semester (3.287) and for the cumulative GPA (3.254) for the first time, while each of CU's 15 varsity teams (track & field counts as two sports, not four) individually achieved a 3.0 grade point average for the first time, with eight of the 15 setting new GPA standards for their sport.
She joined the CU staff in May 1997, hired by then-women's basketball head coach Ceal Barry to be the program's first-ever Director of Basketball Operations. She spent eight seasons in that position until Barry's retirement from coaching in March of 2005.
Livingston came to Boulder from Littleton, Colo., where she was a senior consultant at USA Group Noel-Levitz, an educational consulting firm that is hired by colleges to help recruit and retain students. Prior to that, Livingston spent eight years at Iowa State University as an assistant women's basketball coach (1984-89), admissions counselor (1989-91) and telecounseling coordinator (1991-92).
She earned her bachelor's degree in Sociology from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in May 1983, where she was a four-year letterwinner on Miami's women's basketball team and earned first-team All-Mid-American Conference and first-team Academic All-MAC honors. In August 1997, she was inducted into Miami's Hall of Fame, only the second women's basketball player to be so honored.
Livingston earned her master's degree in Sport and Exercise Science with an emphasis in Sport Administration from the University of Northern Colorado in August 2009.
A native of Toledo, Ohio, she graduated from Lake High School in Millbury, Ohio, in 1979. A three-sport athlete, she was an inaugural member of her high school Hall of Fame in 1983. She is married to Dr. Kelly Causey. In 2013, she was awarded the “Honorary C” for her longtime dedication to the department, and in particular, the student-athlete.
