Business and Industry | Lion VoicesNovember 24, 2025

Just One More Chapter: Dr. Kristin Tardif

Written By: Ian Silvester

Whether she’s working behind her desk, teaching a class, researching her next novel, or stocking the shelves of her favorite bookstore, Dr. Kristin Tardif doesn’t sit on her laurels. 

Tardif recently reflected on the chapters of her life, noting she had endless options for where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. Even so, she readily admits she is exactly where she’s meant to be.

“I love teaching at a state college because we’re raising the scrappers. We’re teaching the scrappers to survive in the age of turbulence,” she said. “Most of us who teach and work here are all scrappers.”

Tardif, a professor and lead faculty of organizational leadership, began her tenure at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith in winter 2015. UAFS wasn’t her first choice, but she fell in love with the people, community, and the opportunity to develop the organizational leadership program as she saw fit.

Thankfully, she said, she had a lifetime of experience helping guide her. 

Part I: Laying the Foundation

Tardif’s family considers Hays, Kansas, their home base, though home was all over the world, beginning when she was six.

“My dad was a drilling superintendent for Aramco. His job took us to Singapore, the Middle East, and I went to high school in Venezuela,” she said. 

As her studies neared an end, Tardif’s family was once again on the move. The job took her parents and siblings to Iran, but with college looming, Tardif returned to Kansas to live with her grandmother.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in geoscience from Fort Hays State University, where her grandfather oversaw the printing department and taught English, and her grandmother ran the student union.

That degree from Fort Hays directed her for the next 28 years of her life.

Part II: A Career in Organizational Leadership

Tardif secured a job as a plant manager for Perrier at Nestlé. She then went east as a division quality manager, started the company’s natural resources program, helped launch its organizational leadership program, and ended her career in corporate affairs and marketing, handling media and crisis management.

“When you grow in a company like Nestlé, you start off doing one thing, they train you in another, train you in another, and train you in another,” she said. “You get training in some things, grow in another thing, and develop in others.”

While at Nestlé, Tardif returned to her roots, earning a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Fort Hays State University.

Tardif said she enjoyed the job. It provided her and her family with financial stability, allowed her to do something she was passionate about, and gave her the opportunity to hone her leadership skills.

Tragedy struck her family in 2001 with the unexpected death of her son. Work demands kept her from grieving properly, and one night at dinner, she saw just how much her family was hurting.

“I decided to retire. I felt like my family really needed me at home. It was a hard decision,” she said. “I transitioned out and went back and got my Ph.D. I decided to end my working life teaching higher ed.”

Tardif earned her doctorate in organizational leadership from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. 

Part III: Here, Now, and The Future

Tardif began her journey in higher education teaching at Central Maine Community College and as an adjunct faculty member at Fort Hays State University. Later, she came to UAFS, where she has been for the last decade.

Here, she has led hundreds of students through “the gray of life” by teaching the skills and knowledge behind organizational leadership. She has relied on her time in the industry to better direct students and has used her history to make connections with them.

“I have a lot of empathy for older students coming back to school,” Tardif said. “I understand what it means to raise kids, go to school, and have a full-time job because I experienced all of that.”

Life before teaching and through teaching also gave Tardif a business sense that is on display in downtown Fort Smith at the Bakery District.

Tardif and her husband recently became the new owners of Bookish. At the store, Tardif displays her four academic publications among the books that keep customers coming back, and she puts what she teaches into practice.

“Bookish is part of the creative economy … and now I can actually take what I have studied and researched, put it into practice, and teach my students the importance of the creative and experience economies,” she said.

When the time comes for Tardif to step away from her career in higher ed, she plans to keep up with her literary passion. She is working on the start of a murder mystery book series and a three-part historical fiction series.

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