University Press of Colorado | Utah State University Press is pleased to announce that as of July 1, 2019, the University of Wyoming became our ninth sustaining member institution in the mountain west. Over the coming months, University of Wyoming faculty will be working in collaboration with Press staff to develop a new University of Wyoming Press imprint.
“Membership in the University Press of Colorado represents collaboration and support from across the campus as everyone realized that UW branding of scholarly publications helps advance the academic reputation of the University,” says Ivan Gaetz, dean of UW Libraries.
Dr. Scott Henkel, associate professor of English and director of the Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research (WIHR), strongly agrees. “There are many benefits of this move. UW is joining an established press, and therefore has the opportunity to make an impact on scholarly conversations at a high level. In addition to raising the scholarly profile of the University of Wyoming, faculty at UW can take the lead in framing and advancing conversations on topics that are vital to some of our most pressing public concerns.”
The University of Wyoming was established as the state’s Morrill Act land-grant university in 1886 and serves as Wyoming’s only public university. Over the years, there has been some on-campus publishing activity, but UW has never had its own university press. To establish that brand, the Press and the University of Wyoming are exploring ways to leverage overlapping disciplinary strengths and, at the same time, considering new opportunities that align with UW’s strategic direction and faculty strengths and interests.
“Building this new imprint will be an interesting challenge for us,” says Darrin Pratt, director of the Press. “Since our founding in 1965, we have always had a consortium of members supporting the University Press of Colorado imprint, and since 2012 that consortium has included Utah State University and the Utah State University Press imprint. When Utah State joined, though, they already had a fully baked brand of their own. Creating an imprint from scratch will be a novel and exciting venture for everyone involved.”
