Utah News Dispatch
New Utah Tech president prepares for the university’s largest class so far
Shane Smeed, Utah Tech University president, speaks during an interview in Salt Lake City on Thursday, May 22, 2025. (Alixel Cabrera/Utah News Dispatch)
Shane Smeed’s first day as president of Utah Tech University came after a more than year-long search for a new leader. The role he’s stepping into has been filled with change and controversy, with many public higher education institutions experiencing high turnover in leadership positions, and bracing for state-demanded cuts.
After 25 years in higher education, including his latest job as president of Park University in Missouri, Smeed moved back to his native Utah, bought a house in St. George and has the intention of making it his family’s forever home.
“I spent a lot of time along the Wasatch Front, but I had spent zero time, with the exception of the last three weeks in the southern part of Utah,” Smeed said in an interview with Utah News Dispatch, “and my wife and I have truly fallen in love with it.”
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While some universities have been scrambling to find balanced budget reallocations, Smeed is looking forward to a future Utah Tech catering the highest enrollment it has seen with more full-time faculty, a new classroom building and another residence hall.
This year, the university is expecting its largest fall class ever with over 13,000 students. Five years into his tenure he expects to see more “quality growth,” he said.
“I would envision the university is going to be at 16,000 students in a few years, and then it’s going to go to 20,000 students, perhaps a little after five years,” he said. “And so in order to do that, we actually (need to) have a campus and an infrastructure that can accommodate that growth.”
During the tenure of Smeed’s predecessor, Richard Williams, the school underwent significant changes, including adopting a polytechnic designation with a focus on hands-on experiences, and notably, a name change from Dixie State University approved by the Utah Legislature in 2021.
But, change isn’t over for the school. With more policy coming from the state Capitol, restricting diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and most recently requiring public universities to cut 10% of their courses’ budgets to reallocate the funds to programs in high demand, Smeed wants to highlight the role of Utah Tech as a polytechnic institution.
“We have some great investments that are taking place in health sciences as well as investments in engineering and in other programs. And one of the things we’re very proud of is that the priority programs were aligning with the priorities of the state of Utah as well,” Smeed said.
When asked his thoughts on recent legislative action impacting higher education in Utah, he said that as a newcomer to this space in Utah, he sees education actions from the Utah Legislature as “a tremendous breath of fresh air.”
“I’ve seen that we have tremendous partners in the legislature, and tremendous support with the House of Representatives and with the Senate and with the governor,” he said.
And, while DEI initiatives are deeply restricted in public entities in the state, he believes Utah Tech is well positioned to encourage diversity in higher education, mostly because of the open enrollment nature of the university.
“We are proud of the fact that more than 50% of the students are from Washington County and between 70% and 80% are from the state of Utah, but we also have more than 40 other states represented here at Utah Tech, we have nearly 40 countries that are represented as well at Utah Tech,” he said. “So our goal is really to create equal opportunity and equal access to education for all students.”
His thoughts on reinvestment bill
While the first 48 hours of his tenure revolved around loud cheers and the much awaited celebrations of 3,500 students graduating this spring, now Smeed has started to work with the university’s faculty and staff to catch up on what needs to go and what should be boosted after the passage of HB265, the reallocations bill.
With tight deadline, Utah universities scramble to cut 10% of budget for courses
Some softwares the school contracted weren’t used enough. There were also inefficiencies on the administrative side, Smeed said. The committee tasked with reviewing the school’s reinvestment efforts also targeted programs that had a decline in enrollment.
“We also wanted to make sure that as we propose new investment in future programs that there were not only investments where we saw that there was interest in the program,” Smeed said, “but they would be programs where students would have the greatest potential to persist and to retain and ultimately graduate.”
The idea, he said, is that students graduate prepared to enter the workforce from day one while keeping their loans low.
But also, one of his goals is to witness students enjoying a good time during their college years, supporting the school’s Trailblazers, and joining other student clubs to create lasting friendships.
