The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees voted Thursday to hire a West Point dean and Sweetwater County native as its next president.
Brigadier General Shane Reeves, 51, becomes UW’s 29th president in July.
He told Cowboy State Daily in a Friday interview that his Wyoming roots not only inform the work he’s about to undertake, but also his life’s accomplishments so far.
He also believes he can answer the more-than three years’ tension between many Wyoming state lawmakers and the university, which many call a culture clash.
That clash surfaced in a more significant way than usual this January, February and March, as some lawmakers sought to cut UW’s state-granted budget portion by $40 million
“I think (I can address that tension), else I wouldn’t’ have applied for the job,” said Reeves, who took the phone interview while driving to a work trip in Texas that he said is part of his current job as dean of the academic Board at the U.S. military Academy in West Point, New York.
“I think there’s some efforts that need be made, to communicate,” he said. “And I think it’s going to fall on me to get out and meet some folks.”
He said he wants to build bridges and dissolve drama and silos internally at UW, as well as build trust and connections throughout the whole state by talking to state legislators and stakeholders.
Many stakeholders are parents of students, he noted.
“I just think that it’s going to be really important, for me to get out,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way you can lead the one, four-year institution in the state from Laramie alone.”
Reeves said he hopes to root out any misconceptions in “the narrative” about what UW does and doesn’t do, and to “help everybody understand just how critical the university is to the state.”
As the state’s lone four-year institution, he said, UW should be driving economic development through “Wyoming-centric research efforts” and demonstrate why its degrees are “pragmatically a very good decision for a young person.”
He said he believes UW is already a “fantastic” place, but is also on the precipice of “becoming the gem of the Rocky Mountains” and showcasing for the rest of the country “the universal Wyoming values I’ve always held dear: grit and character – but also independence of thought.”
‘Eclectic’
Reeves, who has a Juris Doctorate and a Master’s of Law degree, will be the first UW President in at least a decade to not have a PhD, echoing what some news outlets are calling a growing trend of universities hiring leaders from alternate backgrounds.
The 2013-2016 president Richard McGinty held his Doctorate of Business Administration, which is a PhD equivalent.
Reeves conceded that his background is “eclectic” but emphasized that it’s also steeped in academic teaching and administration.
On the one hand, “You’ve got a guy who’s an army officer, you’ve got a guy who’s a lawyer (and has) operational experience,” he said. “But on the other hand, there are a lot of traditional components to my career.”
His current position equates to a provost role, which he noted is often a “natural steppingstone” for university presidencies.
He’s spent years teaching as well as in administration at the military academy.
“Sometimes’ there’s this confusion that military academies are a place where we train soldiers and they run around and we occasionally do parades and play football,” said Reeves, who went on to list many of West Point’s academic bragging rights, like its leading engineering programs and some of its nationally recognized scholars.
He described training as a repetitive process to perfect a skill, but cast education as “what prepares you for uncertainty.”
A robust academic program should equip people to face “complexity and uncertainty and ambiguity" by teaching students how to think, said Reeves.
He said his military experience and mentors have taught him to lead with character, and that’s his hope for his UW term.
The Search
The UW board offered Reeves a contract for four years, which he accepted, and he’ll have a base annual salary of $500,000 a Thursday statement by UW says.
His service is slated to follow the six-year term of current UW President Ed Seidel, who announced last July that he would not seek renewal of his contract.
Seidel’s third-year base annual salary was $403,767, UW spokesman Chad Baldwin told Cowboy State Daily during a Friday interview.
Colorado State University pays its president a base annual salary of $600,000, the Coloradan reported in 2023. Montana State University last year published its president’s contract with a base salary of $455,802.
UW in September formed a 17-member search committee which received more than 100 applications, then interviewed 10 of those, said Baldwin.
The committee forwarded five semifinalists to the board of trustees. One of those dropped out of the race before the interviews, winnowing the cut to four, said Baldwin, who was also on the search committee.
The board interviewed four people and “chose to only identify two publicly and have two finalists,” said Baldwin, adding, “there was never any commitment that it would be a certain number of finalists.”
The other finalist was UW’s College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources Dean Kelly Crane.
In an interview last week, before Reeves’ selection, regarding both finalists and whether they could answer the Legislature’s clash with UW, Baldwin stressed that both have strong connections to Wyoming.
Some Bio
Reeves graduated from Rock Springs High School in 1992 then enrolled at West Point, earning a bachelor’s degree in European history in 1996, says UW’s statement.
He began his Army career as an armor officer with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, “leading soldiers at the platoon and troop levels and establishing a foundation of tactical and organizational leadership,” the statement says.
He earned his juris doctor from the College of William and Mary in 2003 and was deployed in support of combat operations in Iraq as a brigade judge advocate, the statement says, adding that he advised commanders on operations, detainee prosecutions and international law.
For his combat service in Iraq, he earned the Bronze Star.
Reeves in 2008 received a Master of Law in Military Law from the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s School, then taught and directed courses there. He moved to West Point in 2011, where he worked as professor and deputy head of the Department of Law.
The statement calls him a “prolific scholar” and points to more than 35 peer-reviewed publications and other articles about armed conflict and national security.
Reeves became the head of the Department of Law in 2020 before receiving his deanship the next year, the statement says.
He founded the West Point Werx Innovation Hub and the West Point Press, moves which UW’s statement say “accelerated the U.S. Military Academy’s position as the intellectual engine of the Army’s innovation ecosystem.”
The statement says that throughout his career in the Army, Reeves maintained close ties with Wyoming, where many of his family members live.
Reeves and his wife, Kimberly, have three children.
The Committee
The selection committee comprised UW trustees, faculty, staff and students, along with representatives of the state’s key industries. It worked with a consulting firm to solicit candidates for the presidency.
UW’s statement says leaders of UW’s Faculty and Staff senates, along with the Associated Students of UW, voiced support for Reeves’ appointment as president.
The committee, chaired by Carol Linton, also included:
- Chad Baldwin
- Paige Fenton-Hughes
- Rob Godby
- Mike Greear
- Julie Hill
- Dan McCoy
- Paula Medina
- Jim Neiman
- Diane Shober
- Sue Sommers
- Doug Stark
- Michelle Sullivan
- Marissa Taylor
- Dave True
- Tom Walters
- Peter Wold
Statements
UW Board of Trustees Chair Kermit Brown thanked the committee and voiced confidence in Reeves’ upcoming work, in the Thursday statement.
“We are thrilled that a proven leader with a track record of academic success and strong Wyoming roots has agreed to become the next president of Wyoming’s university,” he said.
State Sen. Eric Barlow, R-Gillette, whose military background is in the U.S. Marine Corps and who is running for the GOP nomination for governor, sent Cowboy State Daily a Friday statement voicing congratulations and well wishes to Reeves.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
