The University of Vermont’s Board of Trustees on Thursday voted to hire Dr. Marlene Tromp as the university’s 28th president.
Tromp, the former president of Boise State University, was the only finalist announced earlier this week for the position, and was selected from a pool of more than 10 candidates who interviewed over a six-month search.
She will formally assume the post this summer, officials said in a release.
“I’m so deeply honored to be here,” Tromp said at a press conference Thursday. “It’s such an exceptional opportunity to be able to lead this great institution at this challenging moment for higher education, for our country and for the world.”
Born and raised in Wyoming, Tromp is a professor of English and women’s studies, and has written several books and articles on Victorian literature and culture.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Creighton University in Omaha, a Master of Arts in English from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida.
Tromp will replace former president Suresh Garimella, who departed the role last year to take the top job at the University of Arizona. She arrived on campus Tuesday and took questions from students, faculty and staff during an open forum Wednesday.
“The leader of UVM is also a vital leader for the community and state, and Dr. Tromp brings with her the experience and ability for great success that will benefit all three,” Cynthia Barnhart, the chair of UVM’s Board of Trustees, said in a release. “She has demonstrated excellence as a leader and a scholar who can foster deep and meaningful connections across the university and beyond.”
Tromp arrives at Vermont’s flagship public research university as it continues to expand and bolster its research profile. In February, UVM joined 187 other colleges and universities as an R1, or “Research 1” designated institution — a classification given by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
But the school faces growing uncertainty, as President Donald Trump’s administration has paused federal funding through the National Institutes of Health and other grant-making agencies.
A dozen grants, as a result, have been either cancelled or paused, according to spokesperson Basil Waugh. The university this month announced a 60-day hiring freeze in response to the federal funding uncertainty.
Tromp told reporters at Thursday’s press conference that the university will “have to be very conscious that the funding landscape may fundamentally change.”
“And that means, we’re going to have to be innovators and think differently, think creatively,” she added. “We’re going to have to look for other opportunities to support really the life-changing research that happens on this campus and on so many others.”
Political pressure
Tromp had served in the top role at Boise State University since 2019, and previously served as the provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as the dean and vice provost at Arizona State University.
During her time at Boise State University, Tromp worked with faculty to increase the academic and research profile of the university, UVM said in a release, and “shattered the student graduation record, research funding record and philanthropy record year after year.”
But she leaves behind a politically fraught relationship between the university and the state’s Legislature — one of the first in the country to pass anti-diversity, equity and inclusion laws, Tromp said during Wednesday’s open forum.
Conservative state lawmakers and special interest groups in Idaho have attacked public education and sought to clamp down on DEI initiatives, according to reporting from Idaho Education News.
Tromp’s five-year tenure was marked by repeated attacks on her and growing political pressure. But her response to such attacks was appealing to members of UVM’s presidential search committee.
Ron Lumbra, the previous chair of the university’s Board of Trustees and a member of the presidential search committee, said during Wednesday’s open forum that what Tromp confronted at Boise State “gives her a real head start on what happens when things go negative from a funding standpoint, from a regulatory standpoint — how do you deal with that when you have student groups that are under attack in terms of legislation.”
“Those were the types of things that we saw firsthand, and thought that could benefit us, not because of what we know, but because of what we don’t know what’s coming next,” he added. “That notion of agility really rose to the top.”
Tromp’s administration at Boise State was not always a bulwark against right-wing political pressure. In 2022, a ProPublica report detailed several incidents where the university’s administration capitulated to that pressure.
A land acknowledgment speech written by a Boise State doctoral student to be delivered at a convocation for incoming freshmen in 2020, for example, was pulled after university administrators deemed the speech too provocative given the political climate, ProPublica reported.
But Tromp has said that her administration stood firm in many cases. Tromp, during her tenure, helped defend the university against a $10 million civil lawsuit brought by a business owner who claimed administrators pushed her off campus and violated her First Amendment rights.
Sarah Jo Fendley, the owner of Big City Coffee, sued the university in 2021, alleging she was forcibly pushed off campus in 2020 after students contacted university leaders to condemn the owner’s support of law enforcement, according to reporting from Idaho Education News.
“We were willing to go to court over it to prevent our students from being silenced when they wanted to protest on campus,” she said Wednesday.
Tromp also takes the reins as pro-Palestine protests have reignited on UVM’s campus.
An hour before Tromp’s appointment was announced, students gathered to protest the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A renewed Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 500 people over the past three days, according to reporting from the New York Times.
The protest comes a year after students first began demonstrating on campus. The Students for Justice in Palestine chapter later sued the university in federal court, challenging the group’s suspension following their protests last spring. That lawsuit was dismissed.
While UVM has so far been spared the attention given to schools like Columbia University — and, closer to home, Middlebury College — students attending the protest said they were fearful of a federal investigation and hoped Tromp would work to defend students’ freedom of speech rights on campus.
Luke Ferrari, a UVM student, said he hoped Tromp would “protect student safety… and encourage students to express their right to protest.”
Tromp, when asked during the press conference about pro-Palestinian protests, said it is vital for the university to be “a landscape in which people can freely express their opinions.”
“What I truly hope is that in this moment of deep and profound polarization in this country, that we can bring people together in dialogue at university,” she added.
Tromp, in making the move to Vermont, said there is “no place that you can be a university president where there aren’t challenges, but to be in an environment where people believe that learning and education matters deeply to the future, is really exciting to me.”
“I’m proud of what we accomplished at Boise State, even at a time when higher education has been profoundly under attack,” she said Thursday. “But I’m thrilled about what one can accomplish in a place where there’s an openness to what higher education has to offer.”
Olivia Geiger contributed reporting.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Marlene Tromp named University of Vermont’s next president.