The sixth president of the University of Tennessee (1850–53, as East Tennessee University) was a prominent jurist. He was a native Tennessean (the first to head the university) who had attended both Blount and Greeneville Colleges. He was admitted to the Bar in 1817, and in 1832 was elected Chancellor of the Eastern Division. In 1835 he was unanimously chosen by the legislature as one of the three judges of the Tennessee Supreme Court. He served until 1847, when he became an unsuccessful Whig candidate for the United States Senate. Judge Reese was a trustee of East Tennessee University in 1836 and 1837 and was reappointed in 1856. The university conferred an honorary doctorate upon him (LLD) in 1844.
Reese was influential in obtaining Knoxville’s first two railroads and was a director of one of them, the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad Company. He was president of the East Tennessee Historical and Antiquarian Society from 1830 until his death. Reese faced significant financial problems at the university and made a concerted effort to garner state funds—or at least to receive the full allotment of funds from the 1806 land grant. He resigned on February 19, 1853, and two professors also resigned, forcing a suspension of classes until February 1854.