BSU President Marlene Tromp, rural Idaho and the digital future of Boise State

When Boise State reopens this fall, implementing social distancing rules may be the least of the challenges facing Marlene Tromp in her first year as president. State funding will be reduced, fewer Idaho students will enroll, out-of-state students — who pay a higher tuition — will be fewer in number, and even if its football team plays a full schedule, the prodigious revenue it generates will be down.

Yet if anyone matches up to this moment’s challenges, it may be Tromp. Her first big idea has anticipated the time we live in.

That big idea is to use distance learning to provide a full education in rural Idaho communities to meet locally identified goals. Instead of drawing students away from their hometowns, BSU will encourage them to build successful lives without leaving home.

To see where this idea comes, consider Tromp’s own life and career.

She grew up a miner’s daughter in Green River, Wyoming, and became the first in her family to graduate from college. Expecting to become a medical doctor, she instead fell in love with poetry and earned a doctorate in English literature, often working full time.

After years as a successful professor of literature and author, she asked herself, “Do I want to influence hundreds of students or tens of thousands?” She consequently became a university administrator. Before long, she was dean of the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Science at Arizona State — a hot spot for innovation — and then chief academic officer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

“During my interview for president,” she recalls, “I spoke of Boise State becoming a place for everyone, a national model for outreach and inclusion, and an urban university that reaches out to rural Idaho. Faculty response was so strong and consistent, I had to come!”

Shortly after taking the job, she traveled the state to visit legislators, civic leaders and educators. Soon Tromp chose Payette, Valley and Elmore counties to test her big idea.

“We asked leaders there, what are your needs and ambitions? What skills will you require in the future? We worked backwards from those answers,” Tromp says.

Starting this fall, BSU faculty will go to Payette, McCall and Mountain Home at the beginning and end of each semester. In between, they will teach remotely but with a local mentor, such as a retired librarian, supporting local students, all of whom will be on scholarship.

She encourages students to enroll in interdisciplinary studies rather than one-track education because “to thrive, students must first develop critical thinking. Degree programs will be tailored to each community and each student.”

A full, 120-unit degree can be earned entirely in each place.

In a Zoom interview from a home she shares with her 92-year-old mother, Tromp recalled bringing higher education from Arizona State to the Navajo reservation, where just 4% were going to college.

“They had very little economically, but they had community. I have seen over and over how first-generation students, like myself, are deeply supported by their communities. Students pull families and communities along with them. That happened on the Navajo reservation, and it can happen in Idaho.

“When first-generation students graduate, they request on average 13 tickets for the ceremony,” she remembers fondly. “Everybody comes!”

We may recognize Marlene Tromp from her defining red glasses, stature and single-color attire. We may have picked up on the passion and popularity of her early appearances as she got off to a terrific start. What will take time is to see how she makes lemonade out of all the lemons that landed in her lap this spring.

Idaho’s digital network is spotty; faculty must learn to teach remotely; students must learn how to learn remotely. However, to help correct these shortcomings the Idaho Board of Education has requested $4 million in federal funds to build a “digital campus” for students at all of Idaho’s universities — a central part of Tromp’s vision.

She knows what success looks like.

In five years while she was a leader there, Arizona State increased enrollment by 45 percent. The number of engineering students grew from 6,400 to 22,400. This massive increase came primarily from enrolling, supporting and graduating previously underserved populations — majority female and many Latino and Native American students.

The number of first-generation students at ASU has quadrupled since 2002.

Higher education is rightfully criticized for its cost and for favoring those already advantaged. President Tromp is pushing in the opposite direction: “A place for everyone.” To do this, BSU must enroll many more first-generation students, embrace parallel, online degrees and eventually increase enrollment, driving down per-student costs.

Former BSU President Bob Kustra might seem to be a hard act to follow, but Tromp may have precisely the right act to do what needs to be done today.

During the last legislative session, some legislators wanted to “whack” higher education and complained of what was being taught and who was being recruited to Boise State — a complaint, it would seem, over BSU’s becoming “a place for everyone.”

Tromp is fascinated with books about grit and self-improvement, going back to Victorian times. During our Zoom conversation, she asked why trees had died in a supposedly perfect indoor environment — a biosphere in Arizona. Because, she said, the biosphere had no wind, meaning trees sunk no roots to resist it. No struggle, no growth.

Strong leaders are often at their best facing into a strong wind. Idaho’s first female president looks to be one of them.