Dr. Brian Kraus has been appointed as the next Chief Information Officer at Harford Community College. Dr. Kraus is a seasoned leader in higher education technology and innovation, currently serving as the Director of Campus Applications at West Virginia University (WVU), and he previously served as the University’s Director of Academic Systems. In his WVU roles, he has led the teams responsible for student facing technology including Student Information System (Banner); Student Portal (Ellucian Portal); Customer Relationship Management and Admissions (Target X/Salesforce); Learning Management System (Blackboard); Student Housing (StarRez); Student ID Card (CSGold); Office 365; Zoom; E-Commerce; and Atlassian Suite. Key successes at WVU include eliminating Banner customizations to prepare for a SaaS implementation, implementation of an operational data store as part of a data warehousing project, creation of an e-commerce team responsible for university electronic payments and implementing a role-based security model to improve application security.

Beyond his administrative expertise, Dr. Kraus is also an accomplished educator. He serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Arizona and the University of the Cumberlands, where he teaches courses in project management, information security, computer information systems, and business leadership. Additionally, he has developed individual courses and entire curricula for both graduate and undergraduate programs at several universities.

Dr. Kraus’s career spans a variety of leadership roles, including as Associate Vice President/Chief Information Officer at California University of Pennsylvania, where he led a reimplementation of the Banner Student Information System, implemented Slate CRM, modernized surveillance and access technologies, and designed IT strategic and disaster recovery plans; Chief Information Officer at Volunteer State Community College in Tennessee, with key successes including upgrading Banner 7 to Banner 8, implementing DegreeWorks for academic planning, enhancing campus networks, and virtualizing computer labs; Director of Instructional Technology at Longwood University in Virginia; and Director of Technology at Argosy University in Florida.

Dr. Kraus holds a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Sociology from the University of Florida, a Master of Business Administration with a Finance concentration from Argosy University, and a Doctor of Business Administration specializing in Information Systems, also from Argosy University. He is certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), underscoring his commitment to excellence in IT governance and security.