Board of Trustees selects Reeves as next UW president

LARAMIE (WNE) — A Sweetwater County native with a distinguished military, academic and leadership career in the U.S. Army has been named the 29th president of the University of Wyoming, according to a news release.

Brig. Gen. Shane Reeves, currently the dean of the Academic Board at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, was offered a contract by a vote of the UW Board of Trustees on Thursday and has accepted the position. He will take office in July.

“I am deeply honored and humbled to return home and serve as the next president of the University of Wyoming,” Reeves said in the news release. 

“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,” said Kermit Brown, chairman of the Board of Trustees. 

Reeves will retire from the Army after 30 years of service, the last five as the chief academic officer at West Point, where he has led more than 700 faculty and staff members across 13 academic departments with an annual budget of about $80 million. 

An attorney, he’s a globally recognized international scholar whose career bridges higher education, military service and the law.

Throughout his career in the Army, Reeves has maintained close ties with Wyoming, where many of his family members live. He says he looks forward to traveling around the state to hear from the people of Wyoming about the state’s university, which he describes as an indispensable institution for Wyoming’s future.

Reeves’ priorities include “deepening connections with the university and state communities, building the team, establishing an artificial intelligence task force to ensure we lead in the evolving landscape of higher education — and of course, watching our Pokes dominate in sports this fall.”

His contract is for four years, with an annual base salary of $500,000.

This story was published on April 3, 2026.