No University of Wyoming president has started the extremely challenging job with the institution having a target on its back, placed by legislators hell-bent on budget cuts and ending what they call “woke” programs.
Opinion
The villain in this anti-UW scenario is the far-right Wyoming Freedom Caucus, and it will be up to UW’s next president, Brig. Gen. Shane Reeves, to immediately counter that effort when he takes over the state’s lone four-year university in July.
Reeves will begin his tenure on several positive notes. With an impressive amount of statewide support for the university after the Freedom Caucus’ outrageous attempt to cut UW’s block grant by $40 million for no reason, Reeves should have an already amped-up constituency that wants him to succeed from day 1.
The UW community is also anxious for a fresh start after the controversial final year of President Ed Seidel, who resigned last July but will continue until his contract expires in June. Reeves, a 30-year Army veteran, will resign from the military to helm the university.
Seidel received a vote of no confidence from the Faculty Senate in April 2025, after he demoted a popular dean and the president faced questions about his role in shifting $500,000 to the School of Computing, then headed by Seidel’s romantic partner. Hired in 2020, he was the fifth president hired in six years.
Reeves, an accomplished lawyer, has excellent higher education credentials, though he has never been a university president. He is now dean of the Academic Board at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.
Leading UW will be a big step up in terms of his job responsibilities. At West Point, Reeves has led more than 700 faculty and staff members in 13 departments and has an annual budget of about $80 million, according to a UW press release announcing his selection. In Laramie, he will oversee more than 3,100 benefited employees and a budget of $533 million.
Reeves is a Rock Springs native, which gives him a leg up on having “Wyoming values” compared to out-of-state Freedom Caucus members who recently moved here but pretend they know all about what Wyomingites want.
I have friends who joke that some in the Freedom Caucus who want to control what UW teaches have never even been on a university campus, much less graduate from one.
I have no idea if that’s true, but as of July 2024, 16 members of the Freedom Caucus did not graduate from college, according to Stephanie Muravchik and Jon Shields, authors of “The Republican Civil War: What Liz Cheney’s Wyoming Tells Us About a Divided American Right.”
Another advantage Reeves will have is that the Freedom Caucus — for all its bluster about cutting down the size of the state’s budget to pre-pandemic levels — embarrassingly failed.
In addition to saving the block grant under Seidel, UW beat back attempts to wipe out state funds for Wyoming Public Media, $12.5 million in matching funds for donations and grants, and $6 million for athletics.
The tough-talking extremists in the House folded when confronted by the Senate, which voted to reinstate Gov. Mark Gordon’s recommendation to fully fund UW. House negotiators quickly abandoned the issue.
Reeves — and hopefully the rest of the state — won’t have to deal much with the Freedom Caucus if it loses control of the House in this year’s election. He’d still have to listen to the anti-university forces that remain in the Legislature, but it’s highly doubtful that whatever nonsense they spout will generate much support for getting rid of everything “woke.”
Still, the caucus successfully used the hot-button word to bully university officials into shutting down the great work of UW’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in 2024. I hope Reeves will resist such intimidation efforts.
For the record — and this is a fact Reeves could use to point out the Freedom Caucus’ political ignorance — “woke” originally referred not to liberal politics but to stopping racist violence. In 1938, legendary Black musician Lead Belly sang, “I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go through Alabama — stay woke, keep their eyes open.”
I can’t wait to see if members of the Joint Appropriations Committee show Reeves the same lack of respect they’ve conveyed to some previous UW presidents. Anything less than fair treatment of a native Wyoming brigadier general at next year’s budget hearings should earn the public’s outrage.
The only controversy raised over UW’s selection process, which whittled over 100 presidential applicants to two — Reeves and Kelly Crane — is something they had nothing to do with. Two separate forums featuring the finalists could only be seen live on the Laramie campus. Many raised the valid concern that the events were not shown online, so the public, UW employees and students outside of Laramie could have participated.
It’s not the first time people have complained about the lack of transparency in the UW Board of Trustees’ presidential searches. That brings me to my final concern about Reeves’ new administration: Sir, you can’t consider the folks who hired you automatic supporters of everything you do.
A few presidents over the past 13 years have rocked UW, starting with Robert Sternberg, whose less-than-five-month chaotic stint in 2013 ended with his resignation.
There’s a good reason why his successor, Dick McGinity, made his top priority restoring “a sense of calm” to UW. Five administrators and three deans resigned or accepted other jobs when Sternberg took office. There was a climate of fear for faculty.
When the board of trustees chairman read Sternberg’s abrupt letter of resignation at a meeting, a huge understatement was met with laughter: “It [UW] may not be the best fit for me as president.”
But that experience pales in comparison to what happened to Laurie Nichols, the first and only woman to head UW, who took over in 2016.
WyoFile and other news organizations sued to obtain UW public records after the board of trustees showed that Nichols signed a contract in January 2019 to lead UW for three more years. But in February, the board launched a “secret investigation” of Nichols’ conduct, including charges she verbally abused a UW Foundation employee and yelled at a staff member over a student’s interaction with her dog. Nichols denied the allegations.
The next month, Dave True, then-chairman of the board, and three other trustees flew to see Nichols in Phoenix, where she was vacationing. At a hastily called meeting at the airport, they told her she was being fired but, in true chickenshit fashion, didn’t give her a reason.
I hope that kind of treatment will never be repeated for future presidents. And I hope Reeves’ time at UW will be fruitful for all students, faculty, staff and himself.
I don’t need to look at Reeves’ military and educational accomplishments to know that the university has made a quality hire, which is good since his considerable annual salary will be $500,000. His list of priorities for UW includes “deepening connections with the university and state communities” and of course “watching our Pokes dominate in sports this fall.”
The general is one smart man who knows what UW’s traditional GOP lawmakers who may soon return to power want to see.
