Boise State University’s interim president is leaving this summer.
On Tuesday, Jeremiah Shinn accepted the president’s post at the University of Montana. Shinn said he plans to start at UM on July 1.
Shinn has been interim Boise State president since May — during a laborious State Board of Education search for a permanent leader at Idaho’s largest four-year university.
Shinn’s departure comes as little surprise.
Less than two weeks ago, the UM announced Shinn as its presidential finalist, and brought in Shinn for campus visits last week.
In an email to the Boise State community Tuesday afternoon, Shinn said the UM Board of Regents had offered him the president’s job that morning.
While considerably smaller than Boise State, with an enrollment of about 11,000, the UM enjoys R1 research status from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education — a top-tier designation Boise State is pursuing.
“I am grateful and excited for the opportunity to lead an R1 flagship with deep roots, tremendous momentum and unlimited potential,” Shinn wrote Tuesday. “At the same time, I am profoundly saddened to leave Boise State; a place that has been central to my life and to my work for more than half of my career.”
Shinn worked in several different administrative roles at Boise State from 2010 to 2019. He returned to Boise State in February 2023 as vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, a position he held until taking the interim president’s post.
The State Board is meeting on the University of Idaho campus this week; one of its agenda items is an update on the Boise State search.
The State Board has said it hopes to have a new president on the Boise State campus in time for fall classes, and hopes to name a finalist by mid-June.
Interviews will begin “in the coming weeks,” the State Board said in an email to the Boise State community Tuesday afternoon. Search subcommittees representing campus stakeholder groups will screen semifinalists.
The State Board also said it will work “to ensure seamless continuity of leadership,” if Shinn leaves Boise State before a new president arrives.
The president’s search began in March 2025, when Marlene Tromp announced she was leaving Boise State for the president’s job at the University of Vermont. The State Board suspended the process about six months later. At the time, board leaders said some candidates did not want to be publicly named as finalists for the Boise State job, for fear of compromising their current position.
The 2026 Legislature responded by clamping down on the public phase of the search process, at the State Board’s urging. The State Board will now need to name only one finalist — not a field of five finalists, as the law had required.
Shinn becomes the latest of several top administrators to leave Boise State after Tromp’s departure. Vacancies include the provost and chief financial officer positions.
“Even during a time of transition and renewal, our work continues, with urgency, focus and optimism,” Shinn said in his email Tuesday. “What defines this great university is not a single moment or a single leader, but the collective strength, creativity and commitment of our campus community.”
