BSU boss embraces 'blue turf thinking'

COEUR d'ALENE — After 18 months of serving as Boise State University's newest president, Marlene Tromp made her first official trip up north last week to find out more about the Panhandle — and to let you, the readers, know more about her. 

A proud Wyomingite from little Green River, Tromp is a first-generation college graduate and the daughter of working-class parents. 

Like many young Idahoans, cost presented a barrier between Tromp and higher education. 

After receiving the highest ACT standardized test score in the state, 17-year-old Tromp began receiving stacks of catalogs from interested colleges across the country. Still, scraping up $80 to apply was a steep price for the Tromp family in the 1980s, she said. 

Together, they decided the closest community college was Tromp's only option for higher education. 

That was until the school guidance counselor paid for and applied to schools for Tromp using a copy of her admissions essay from English class. Tromp discovered the counselor's ploy, she said, only when he called her into the office and told her she was accepted — to all of the schools, with scholarships. 

"Here was this very reserved Wyoming guy that could barely sit in his chair. He was so excited," Tromp said, laughing.

Tromp said she waited hours to show her father the acceptance letter and full-ride scholarship offer from an "elite East Coast school" hand-picked by her counselor. After looking at the offer for several minutes, Tromp's father put it on the table and said:

"Honey, how are we going to get you home if this turns out not to be real? How are we going to afford to bring you home?"

"He thought it was like a Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes letter," Tromp said. "He just thought, there's no way. All that money and we're not paying anything? There's no way." 

Overcoming that barrier sparked Tromp's fire for helping individuals gain access to education services by removing obstacles, she said. And that led to one of her first initiatives after becoming BSU's seventh president, creating and launching the Community Impact Program. 

CIP combines online and off-campus learning opportunities where instructors travel to rural areas so students don't have to leave their hometowns. 

"We expect people to funnel down to the metro area to go to school," Tromp said. "A lot of people are bound to their rural communities. Maybe they work on their family's farm, in the family business, or are relied on. They can't leave for four years. That would devastate a family."

Studies have shown that adding a human component to traditional online education, like in the CIP model, increases student completion rates, the president said.

Tromp also employed a similar program during her tenure as the Arizona State University West campus vice provost and dean of the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Elements of CIP integrated into Tromp's ASU model increased graduation rates within the Gila River Indian community from 4% to 89%, she said.

"We tailored it to things that they cared about," Tromp said. "Our students loved it."

CIP serves communities in Mountain Home, the Western Treasure Valley, and West Central Mountains, but Tromp hopes to expand the program to underserved areas. 

"I think we're missing out on incredible talent and perspectives," she said. "We're not hearing the perspectives of people who grow up in Sandpoint and have experience in business, government, or the nonprofit world. What they see could change the way we understand everything." 

Since taking office, Tromp also started the "Presidential True Blue Scholarship," which specifically aims to help more rural Idaho residents attend college and the "Hometown Challenge" that brings them home after graduation.

More than 5,500 BSU alumni are North Idaho entrepreneurs, business leaders, teachers, and professionals, institution data shows. Tromp hopes to continue growing the BSU influence in North Idaho and expand "blue turf thinking."

Boise State's blue turf is more than a neon-colored AstroTurf, she explained. Before BSU fully installed the turf in 1986, no other school had attempted a non-green football field. Now any university that wants to have any turf color besides green has to get BSU's permission first. 

"It's a metaphor that we don't have to do it as other people have done it," Tromp said. "Isn't that amazing?"