For years, editors of the Vermont Cynic had limited access to the president of the University of Vermont. Suresh Garimella, who held the job from 2019 to 2024, treated the student paper as a nuisance best ignored, its editors say. The Cynic couldn’t get an interview and seldom received statements from his office.
“He was completely unreachable,” said Liliana Mefford, a features editor.
So when Marlene Tromp, who became president of UVM in July, made herself available for an interview in early September, the Cynic staff was floored. Coeditor Maxine Thornton marveled that Tromp “was totally responsive.”
Mefford expected Tromp to give her an hour, tops. Their conversation went on for two hours. When the interview ended, the student asked Adam White, executive director of UVM communications, “Is she for real?”
Wherever she goes, Tromp stops to talk with students, faculty and staff.
Tromp followed up with “Tromp or Treat,” a first-ever Halloween party for the student journalists. More than 30 members of the Cynic staff listened to their president, a feminist scholar and expert in Victorian fiction, tell horror stories about 19th-century English freak shows, séances and Jack the Ripper.
Four of the journalists dressed up as Tromp, with blond hairdos, her signature red thick-frame glasses and knotted scarves. Tromp, clad in a black dress and spiderweb-inspired cape, posed for a photo with them. “She got a kick out of it,” Mefford said. The image was posted to the university’s Instagram account.
The Halloween event was not an anomaly. Since her arrival in July from Idaho, where she served as president of Boise State University for six years, Tromp has been highly visible. She is frequently seen striding across campus, apparently ignoring pain from a damaged nerve in her left leg. Though her daily uniform is unflashy — monochromatic skirt suits and practical footwear — her cropped blonde hair and tall, thin frame are hard to miss. In the light, a crescent of stud earrings sparkle from the helix of her left ear.
Wherever she goes, Tromp stops to talk with students, faculty and staff. While she is an adept public speaker and storyteller, mostly she listens. At a recent Faculty Senate meeting, she quietly took notes in the back of the room. Whether she’s talking or listening, she locks eyes and smiles — a lot. White said her ability to connect with people is her superpower.
“There are no ordinary moments and no meaningless encounters,” he said.
Tromp’s approach has been described as a stark contrast to that of Garimella, an introvert by temperament and a mechanical engineer by training, who left UVM to become president of the University of Arizona. Tromp inherits an institution reshaped by Garimella and his predecessor, Tom Sullivan, who began the painful process of tightening the university’s budget and eliminating languishing humanities courses. Garimella dropped 23 majors and minors, kept tuition frozen for five years, expanded the undergraduate student body, and introduced a tuition-free program for Vermont students. He also elevated UVM’s standing as a research institution; federal research dollars more than doubled during his tenure, and grant income is now on par with tuition revenue.
While Tromp is expected to build on Garimella’s work, she has a different mandate. As she already has shown, one focus is rebuilding relationships with faculty and students. Tromp will also have to manage the university’s response to the Trump administration’s attacks on the culture of higher education institutions — an area in which she brings battlefield experience from Idaho.
UVM trustees described Garimella as a change agent who made the university more affordable and more competitive academically. Along the way, however, he alienated many in the UVM community. “He let interaction with students fall by the wayside,” Thornton, the Cynic editor, said.
Longtime UVM trustee Frank Cioffi had a similar take: Garimella was strong on research but weak on connecting with the campus community. “I saw us as not being as open and accessible as we needed to be,” Cioffi said.
Staff and faculty were incensed by the budget cuts that Garimella imposed during the pandemic. In 2021, a staff union formed, and more than 1,400 members of a student, faculty and community opposition group signed a no-confidence petition targeting Garimella. Three years later, UVM graduate students unionized.
“Everyone that I’ve talked to who has met her or listened to her feels good about her presence, and that’s a really good omen.”
Susan Comerford
Susan Comerford, associate professor of social work and president of UVM United Academics, the faculty union, blames Garimella for creating operating deficits, eroding morale, and endangering what makes UVM special — the mentoring relationship between students and professors.
“If you overwork people to the point of where we are now in terms of morale and actual sustainability, you lose the magic that UVM has had for decades,” Comerford said.
Tromp’s challenge is to bring back the magic — and so far, her Vermont honeymoon shows no sign of ending. Since she arrived at UVM on July 1, she has been on a determined charm offensive, meeting with unions, alumni, students, faculty, staff, lawmakers, state officials and business leaders. Even Comerford, who has a jaundiced view of the administration, said: “I think everyone that I’ve talked to who has met her or listened to her feels good about her presence, and I think that’s a really good omen for the beginning of her term.”
Ron Lumbra, the former chair of the UVM trustees and cochair of the presidential search committee, said he believed Tromp will continue to advance research and build the university’s brand nationally.
If UVM can get faculty, staff, students, the City of Burlington, the legislature and alums “synergized and rowing in the right direction” Lumbra said, the university will have more momentum. “When you have internal friction, you know, it’s essentially like a crew boat going down the river where the rowers aren’t in sync,” he said. “It slows the boat down.”
Cohesion and solidarity are exactly what UVM needs now in order to face potential pressures from the Trump administration and a demographic cliff impacting student enrollment.
So far, Tromp “is really coming through as expected,” Lumbra said. “Her relatability, her engagement, her ability to deliver, without surprise, what we expected has been really gratifying.”
Tromp, however, is no stranger to friction. Part of her appeal as a candidate for UVM’s top job was her experience at Boise State, Idaho’s 27,000-student flagship institution. Tromp repeatedly came under political fire from Republican Idaho lawmakers over issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. They were also determined to cut the school’s budget.
In the spring, as the federal government attacked academic independence and diversity programs at universities throughout the U.S., members of UVM’s presidential search committee viewed Tromp’s battle scars as an asset.
“There were a lot of things that were painful in Idaho, and I think there are a lot of things that are complex in the national landscape right now,” Tromp said. “I learned in a very profound way that listening to people who were angry with you or disagreed with you, you could learn so much from that.”
Coal Miner’s Daughter
Tromp, who is 59, grew up in Green River, Wyo., population 12,000. The town’s claim to fame is as the world’s largest deposit of trona ore, a mineral that is used to make soda ash, which in turn is utilized to manufacture glass, paper, soap and baking soda. The nearest metropolis is Salt Lake City, 170 miles away.
Her father, a World War II veteran who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps, brought his young family there from Ohio so that he could work as a mechanic in the local trona and coal mines.
“He’s one of the smartest people I ever knew, and [college] just wasn’t an option for him,” Tromp said. Growing up, money was tight. “Often, I didn’t have the things that other kids had,” she said.
She recalls how he stood at the kitchen sink with a nail brush, scrubbing the black grease that had seeped into his cuticles and under his nails. “He really wanted for his daughters not to have to work like that. And he wanted us to be able, if we chose, to work with our minds.”
An accomplished student, Tromp was offered full rides at seven colleges as a first-generation student. But her dad thought the offers were too-good-to-be-true “hoaxes.” He urged her to go take a scholarship from Creighton University in Nebraska because it was a Jesuit school, and he thought it unlikely the priests would lie about providing financial support.
Tromp was initially premed, and her father took triple-overtime shifts to get her through college. When she told her father she wanted to become an academic, he withdrew his support. Tromp worked three jobs while managing a full course load to finish her final year.
She expressed only gratitude for her father. “I count myself very, very fortunate that he was willing to make those kinds of sacrifices for me, and I feel grateful every single day for everything I have,” she said.
After she earned a bachelor’s degree in English, she got her master’s at the University of Wyoming and a doctorate in English at the University of Florida, where she wrote her dissertation on domestic violence in Victorian England and also earned a women’s studies certificate.
In the mid-1990s, Tromp began a peripatetic career as a professor and administrator that took her to Ohio, Arizona, California and Idaho. As an academic, she was a prolific author, specializing in a wide range of topics through the lens of the Victorian period. She wrote about the use of drugs in spiritualism, marital codes of behavior, and freak shows with attractions such as bearded ladies, dwarves and six-legged sheep.
Soon she found herself in administrative roles, even though she loved teaching. “I just kept getting called to do service, and I wanted to problem-solve, and I wanted to help people,” she said.
Each school offered its own lessons. At Denison University in Ohio, she learned how to take care of students. As a school director and later dean at Arizona State University, she became immersed in a culture of academic innovation. As provost and executive vice chancellor of the University of California Santa Cruz, she acquired new insights about academic excellence.
Tromp said her wide range of experience in executive leadership roles enabled her to solve problems. “It doesn’t mean you even use the strategy you used before,” she said. “But at least you have an idea of what kinds of challenges you might face.”
Oh, Boise
Boise State University provided some of her most difficult lessons. Idaho is a deeply conservative state, and its Republican-dominated legislature was determined to cut Boise State’s budget and to purge its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Political and social conflict marked her six-year presidency, and she was under intense public scrutiny. Tromp navigated this environment by defending academic freedom and wooing legislators — and sometimes bowing to outside pressure.
Less than two weeks into her tenure, in September 2019, a group of lawmakers sent a letter demanding that Tromp abandon the university’s commitment to DEI programs. Republican State Rep. Barbara Ehardt wrote that “the drive to create a diversified and inclusive culture becomes divisive and exclusionary because it separates and segregates students.” All students, she said, should be treated “the Idaho way!” — fairly and equally. The letter took issue with multicultural programs, fellowships for minority students and time spent on pronoun protocol. Twenty-eight Republican legislators signed it.
Tromp drove four hours to Ehardt’s home in eastern Idaho to hear her out. “I kept asking questions to understand what it was that she was concerned about, and finally, she said, ‘I’m concerned that a kid that’s grown up in rural Idaho will make political mistakes and be shamed.’ And I said, ‘Oh, you mean a kid like I was who grew up in an environment where there were a lot of things I didn’t know.’ And she said, ‘Yeah.’ And I said, ‘I don’t want any student on campus to feel ashamed.’”
Tromp’s trek to Ehardt’s home paid off — to a point. The legislator said she developed an “excellent working relationship” with the BSU president. The two met frequently, and Ehardt fended off a legislative attack on Tromp’s salary.
“I thought President Tromp had great leadership skills,” Ehardt told Seven Days. She nevertheless later led an effort to eliminate all state funding for higher education.
Tromp’s bridge building was also evident in the Institute for Advancing American Values, which she started at the university. The program brings 10 people with varying political points of view together to talk about what they value in front of a silent audience. Many of the events, called Idaho Listens, air on Idaho Public Television.
“What we found is that when people could see each other as actually having values, even if they disagreed, that it changed the way they talked with each other,” Tromp said, adding, “It’s critical for democracy for us to be able to talk with each other.” At some sessions, audience members wept.
Idaho, however, is an inhospitable political setting for a liberal university and an open-minded administrator. Firestorms around diversity, equity and inclusion continued to reignite. Tromp said she believes strongly in diversity efforts, but under her leadership BSU did not always defend those principles. In several cases, Ehardt said, “[Tromp] had no choice” but to capitulate because her job was on the line. The Idaho State Board of Education, responsible for hiring and firing the president of BSU, became more conservative after hiring Tromp, Ehardt said.
In 2020, the university canceled at the last minute a speech to incoming freshmen by a Native American student acknowledging that BSU sits on Indigenous land. A former BSU official later told the investigative news outlet ProPublica that the university’s leaders considered the speech “too provocative” for Idaho’s political climate. (Tromp said the student was able to give the speech as part of her doctoral graduation ceremony.)
In spring 2021, as lawmakers and the Idaho Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank, eyed diversity programs at BSU, Tromp canceled a required ethics and diversity course for 1,300 students midsemester over a rumored video of a white student being “humiliated” and “degraded” for their “beliefs and values,” according to a report from Inside Higher Ed. An investigation found that the rumor could not be substantiated.
That same year, Boise State political science professor Scott Yenor gave a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in which he described women with careers as “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome” and colleges and universities as “the citadels of our gynocracy.” The campus erupted in protests, covered by CNN. Tromp’s administration issued a statement supporting academic freedom and Yenor’s right to free speech, but Tromp personally signed a petition defending the right of women to seek an education.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, another culture clash erupted. Students objected to the presence of an on-campus coffee shop whose owner, Sarah Jo Fendley, displayed “Thin Blue Line” flags and decals in support of police officers at her separate, off-campus coffee shop. In a meeting with administrators, Fendley insisted that BSU publicly support her business, Big City Coffee. BSU refused to do so on grounds that it would squelch student free speech. Fendley closed the campus location that day, according to BSU court filings, and claimed in her lawsuit that administrators forced her out.
A year later, Fendley sued the university for violating her freedom of speech, due process and equal protection rights; in October 2024, she won a $4 million jury award on First Amendment grounds. Later, a judge reduced the amount, then added attorneys’ fees, bringing the total to $5.5 million. The case is on appeal. Michael Roe, Fendley’s attorney, said BSU could have settled the case for $100,000 and an apology. BSU’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite the jury verdict, Tromp continues to believe the university did the right thing.
“I feel quite strongly now, as I did then, that students have a right to express their concerns, and my team was not going to tell students they couldn’t speak or couldn’t protest, and I think that’s right,” she said. “Nor did we ask any business owner to change their belief system in order to be on campus.”
Tromp later closed the BSU Student Equity Center and Gender Equity Center in advance of a resolution brought by the Idaho State Board of Education that mandated the elimination of all DEI programs at the university.
Despite these headwinds, Tromp and her team increased graduation rates by 39 percent. Philanthropic donations grew by 51 percent, and research awards rose 71 percent. She also created five new interdisciplinary schools and colleges and a rural community impact program.
And Tromp found an opportunity in the painful experience at Boise State. She became a regular speaker for the Crisis Leadership in Higher Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, where she could talk about her experiences off the record.
“I feel so proud of the work that I did there and so grateful for the people that helped make that work possible,” Tromp said.
When UVM launched its search for a new president in September 2024, trustees were looking for a proven leader who could manage the challenges facing higher education: declining enrollments, affordability and public distrust. And although UVM has so far largely escaped the Trump administration’s funding cuts and attacks on DEI programs, the new president would potentially have to manage those conflicts as well.
The search committee, composed of faculty, staff, students and trustees, sifted through an initial pool of about 100 applicants, said Cynthia Barnhart, who is the chair of the UVM Board of Trustees, a cochair of the search committee and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The committee interviewed 10 candidates.
Tromp emerged as the “clear best choice,” Barnhart said. “She combined empathy and engagement with deep leadership experience and a proven ability to execute on a strategic vision in especially challenging times.”
Lumbra, a cochair of the search committee, said Tromp’s experience under political pressure with financial support on the line was a major plus. “She was very seasoned on the issues we worried could really become problematic for us.” Tromp was the sole finalist when she visited UVM in February.
Whither UVM?
Over the summer, Tromp moved her family to the UVM president’s residence, Englesby House, settling in with her adult son, older sister and former husband, James Spearman, whom she describes as her best friend.
Tromp joined the Greater Burlington YMCA, where she has been exercising as part of her recovery from a recent hamstring surgery. A complex workout machine has since been installed at Englesby; in her office, the new president asked for a standing desk and treadmill.
Tromp has wasted no time in assembling a team and creating new initiatives. Among her top hires are two former executives from Boise State: Alicia Estey, chief financial and operating officer, became UVM’s vice president for finance and administration; and Lauren Griswold is now UVM’s new chief communications and marketing officer. Both are trusted allies who supported Tromp’s leadership during the pandemic and were directly involved in managing the interactions with Big City Coffee. Estey was a defendant in the lawsuit.
“She’s not the type of leader who just comes in and says, ‘This is what we’re going to do.'”
Lauren Griswold
In her first five months as president, Tromp has quickly grasped the needs of the $941 million enterprise that is UVM. She has literally hit the ground running, traveling to every county in the state, meeting with lawmakers, business groups and local schools. Tromp sees this outreach as part and parcel of UVM’s commitment to serving the state as a land grant college.
In her first week on campus, she met with United Academic leaders. Comerford, the president of the union, was impressed by her high IQ and emotional intelligence. Comerford has “qualified hope” that over time, Tromp can dispel what Comerford called a pall of burnout hanging over the faculty.
Anticipating potential adverse actions from the federal government, Tromp has created operations teams with dozens of faculty and administrative representatives for leadership, research, international students and diversity. Their task is to prepare responses should threats to intellectual independence emerge.
Tromp said the university’s “Our Common Ground” values — respect, integrity, innovation, openness, justice and responsibility — are the framework for decisions in the Trump era. Her main concern is protecting the university’s First Amendment rights. “I don’t think you can give up your academic freedom and be a university,” Tromp said.
Tromp also quickly launched a strategic planning initiative designed to set the stage for UVM’s work over the next five years. Since October, 1,000 people have given input. Griswold, the UVM marketing chief, said the process is similar to Tromp’s approach at BSU. A strategic planning committee, made up of faculty and administrators, will write an initial draft and then hold listening sessions to solicit feedback. There are four draft “pillars”: student impact; values-driven learning and research; Vermont partnerships; and campus community, systems and infrastructure.
“The voice of the campus community is really integral to her leadership style,” Griswold said. “She’s not the type of leader who just comes in and says, ‘This is what we’re going to do.’”
Tromp said she doesn’t have a preconceived notion of where the university is headed.
Maintaining UVM’s research gains will remain a high priority. Garimella set the university on a path to receive a national R-1 designation in February from the Carnegie Classification of Higher Education Institutions. To keep that status, UVM must maintain a high level of research activity across disciplines and award a minimum number of doctoral degrees.
Going forward, UVM will invest more resources in attracting graduate students to develop a pipeline for doctoral programs. Expanding undergraduate enrollment is not part of the plan.
“We’re at a good size right now,” Tromp said. “We know that if we get too large, it’s hard for us to deliver the kind of really personalized education that we give to our students and the kind of mentorship that our faculty and staff provide.”
Jay Jacobs, the vice president of enrollment, said the undergraduate student body will level off at about 11,600 students but graduate school programs, which now have about 886 students, will grow. Jacobs said the strategic plan will help UVM determine how to meet the demands of the market, especially in AI, STEM and virtual learning.
Tromp is also considering ways to expand tuition-free programs. The Vermont Promise scholarship, developed under Garimella, offers a free education to Vermont students whose family’s income is under $100,000 a year. Tromp is crunching the numbers to see whether out- of-state students could benefit from a similar program. Their tuition is $46,655; the in-state rate is $16,938.
Also high on Tromp’s agenda is UVM’s sometimes contentious relationship with the city of Burlington. Tromp and Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak have met several times already and communicate almost weekly. The women appear to have hit it off. Mulvaney-Stanak said they “commiserate” about leading their respective institutions through financial pressures and federal attacks.
In response to drug problems that are readily evident in Burlington, Tromp has formed two “tiger teams” to work on public safety issues in the city. UVM Police Services will assist with patrols in the Hill Section and at UVM Medical Center, and campus volunteers are helping with graffiti cleanup. A city-university joint public safety forum will be held in January. The university’s mental health team has proposed setting up a mobile opioid-treatment unit. The mayor hopes to get UVM volunteers to help with trash and syringe pickup.
Burlington’s issues call for a “multifaceted solution,” Tromp said. “We can’t simply say something is a problem. Let’s see what we can do to address it and learn in the process, too, and keep iterating.”
The university’s impact on Burlington’s housing availability and costs has long been a concern, and Tromp said she’s receptive to ideas.
“I’m really open to partnering with the city to problem-solve with them on housing issues, too,” Tromp said. “We can’t see ourselves as separate from the community.”
She wasn’t prepared to talk about UVM’s potential plans for the former Trinity College campus, which the university has eyed for housing development. The recently completed Catamount Run apartments in South Burlington for graduate and medical students should “help ease the stressors,” she said.
Mulvaney-Stanak hopes for a fresh start that takes into account the needs of both the city and the university. The mayor wants to focus on rental affordability and leverage both city and university assets. It’s important for people in Burlington to realize that the profile of the average student is “not necessarily all rich families from Connecticut paying exorbitant rents,” she said.
“I think to solve problems in partnership is such a profound way to meet the needs of the community, and I think the university can really show up,” Tromp said.
A College Upon a Hill
During a recent interview in her wood-paneled office in the Waterman Building, Tromp cupped her hands around a coffee mug as she enthused about the strategic plan and building a collaborative vision for UVM. She paused to collect her thoughts about the university’s role and future.
She said she sees UVM as a values-driven community where students learn how to make a difference in the world. She plans to tap the human potential of the university community and attract more staff and students who understand UVM’s zeitgeist. The strategic plan will reflect what sets UVM apart: its ideals.
“It’s the reason that our MBA program was named No. 1 in social impact in the U.S. and that we were named Princeton’s No. 1 social impact university,” Tromp said.
If it sounds corny, well, it is. Tromp is an optimist. When she reflects on difficult subjects such as the culture wars in Idaho, she focuses not on the conflict but the wisdom she gleaned from the experience. For Tromp, there seems to be no shortage of positive lessons and unlimited opportunities when a campus is aligned.
Tromp is bullish about UVM even as other schools in Vermont are getting smaller, tightening their belts and even closing. Vermont State University has consolidated four state schools. Several independent institutions have gone out of business.
Tromp said her chief interest is lowering financial barriers for students — both Vermonters but those from elsewhere, too.
Out-of-staters are important for Vermont, she said, because many of them fall in love with the place and stay after they graduate. Seven Days has reported extensively about how Vermont’s population is one of the oldest in the nation — and the profound impacts that has on its economy, education systems and culture.
“And so, we’re really helping the state thrive,” she said, “by ensuring that the state has the young people who are going to innovate and be a part of the health care system and start their small businesses here and help the communities thrive.”
Tromp said UVM is a microcosm of what is best in academia – excellence, mentorship and aspiration. Her message to high school students from St. Johnsbury to Boise is simple:
“You should try UVM.”
Correction, December 12, 2025: A previous version of this story misidentified Alicia Estey as well as the title she held at Boise State University: chief financial and operating officer.
The original print version of this article was headlined “The Cats Whisperer | UVM’s new president, Marlene Tromp, has been delighting students and staff simply by listening to their ideas”
This article appears in Dec 10-16 2025.
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