Belief and Curiosity at the Core of Great Leadership With Marlene Tromp

Marlene Tromp:
[0:00] I admire Belief in others even when it sometimes causes collision. Because I think if you're driven by your values, then even if we disagree, I have such deep respect for that.

Jon Clifton:
[0:15] A university president today stands at the center of a storm. Falling trust, political crossfire, student debt, and the shockwave of artificial intelligence. Most see crisis. Dr. Marlene Tromp sees possibility. Now the 28th president of the University of Vermont, she has remade institutions from California to Idaho, setting records in research, philanthropy, and student success. Her path began not in a boardroom, but in Victorian literature, where she learned how ideas move societies. And today, she leads with conviction. Access, excellence, and innovation do not compete. They rise together or not at all. That belief is not theory, it's practice. And in our conversation, Dr. Tromp shows what it means to lead a university in the eye of the storm.

President Dr. Marlene Tromp, thank you for being here with us today.

Marlene Tromp:
[1:09] I'm so pleased to be here.

Jon Clifton:
[1:10] Can you tell us a little bit more about your path to becoming the president of the University of Vermont?

Marlene Tromp:
[1:17] So I am literally the daughter of a coal miner and a Toronto miner. And my dad had aspirations for his two daughters to have the college education that he longed for so much. And so he worked really, really hard to ensure that we could go to college. So I went to school pre-med, and I loved the science. But I really fell in love with literature and the power that it gave us to understand people and culture and the ways it gave us insights and the ways that it really helped change the world. And so I went to grad school in English, which nearly broke my father's heart. He was so afraid, you know, that I wasn't going to be able to make a stable life for myself. And when I was a senior, I was working with, I was tutoring someone in calculus. And he said, Marlene, what do you want to do when you graduate? You're so good at this, and what do you think you want to do? And I said, I don't know. I just want to stay in college forever. So I did.

Jon Clifton:
[2:26] Wow, wow.

Marlene Tromp:
[2:28] And I feel really, really fortunate. There were hundreds of applicants for the job that I eventually got as a professor. So I felt really fortunate to be the person that got chosen to do that. As time has gone on, I've just been invited to step up to leadership positions more and more often. And I was a little wary at first about stepping away from the classroom or from my research, which I really love. But I had a colleague say to me, do you want to impact hundreds of students or tens of thousands? And for me, that was a real turning point.

Jon Clifton:
[2:57] Can you say more about that controversy? You said there was a small group, they were upset about things, and it even apparently was so public that it had you get the invite to Harvard to say, can you speak about crisis management? But it sounds like that's not actually COVID that was being talked about. What was it?

Marlene Tromp:
[3:15] It was the antagonism towards higher education, the sense that higher education was striving to indoctrinate people and to keep them from having a mind of their own and to compel them to think in other ways. And I so strongly believe that's not the case. And I spoke very passionately about it. But I think the fact that I came from UC Santa Cruz made people afraid that I was some radical leftist who was trying to take down the state of Idaho. And, in fact, there were people who talked about assassinating me online. So it was very intense and very piqued. But our outcomes were so good. And when I would sit down and meet with people, they would often say, well gosh, it's clear you just want to help students. It's clear that you're not here to cause harm. But some people refuse to even meet with me.

Jon Clifton:
[4:10] You seem to engage in a lot of confrontation yourself. And you know, it's funny because those with Command, we feel like confrontation is sort of the first step to resolution. What strengths cause you to do that?

Marlene Tromp:
[4:25] You know, I don't command. I don't know. It must be, yeah, it's 23. It's low for me. I don't think I need to be right. I go into it with curiosity. So, you know, my number one strength is Learner. And so I really want to understand. When I walk in, when I walk towards the conflict, I'm trying to learn. And I think because I'm Strategic too, that's very high in my top five. I really want to understand how the pieces fit together. I really want to understand. And then that helps me know what I can do or what I need to communicate. But it also helps me feel like I see who they are and I see what they're striving for and driving towards. If I don't understand that, I can't make good decisions myself. So it's less, I actually am not interested in the conflict. I'm curious.

Jon Clifton:
[5:20] You know, another one that's not in your top five, and I'm super curious about this. It's one that's in my top 10, as I've mentioned, is Includer. And the reason I ask that one is because, you know, you are well-known in your work for your inclusion efforts. So what of your top five, what of your top 10 inspires you to be so passionate when, you know, maybe you don't have what some might think is a traditional strength that would fit into a conversation like that?

Marlene Tromp:
[5:47] It's that deep belief. So Belief is in my top 10, and I am so devoted to the notion that everybody deserves a fair chance. So devoted to that notion. And it's part of the reason that I can approach people who disagree with me, because I want them to have a fair chance too. I want to give them an opportunity to speak for themselves and let me hear them. I had an experience when I was a young professor, there was a colleague of mine who was being heavily criticized for an assignment that he had asked his class to do. People were very angry.

Jon Clifton:
[6:27] What was the assignment?

Marlene Tromp:
[6:28] He had asked students to assess the other classes they were taking based on Paolo Ferrari's banking model of education, which made his colleagues feel like he had charged his students to send them in as spies to critique them. And they felt undermined and criticized. They felt like he had set them up to critique what they were doing without giving them any warning. And so I was in our campus fitness center, and I saw him working out across the other side of the gym. And I walked over to him, and I said, hey, can you tell me from your perspective what you were trying to do here? And he stopped what he was doing and he put down all of his workout gear and he turned to me and his eyes welled up with tears and he said, you're the first person to ask. But that Learner is so strong in me and Belief is so strong in me that I want to understand what's driving people and what they're thinking. And I'm so profoundly devoted to the value in each human being that it's very difficult for me to ever dismiss someone out of hand.

Jon Clifton:
[7:48] Are there lessons for the rest of us? And you know, you wonder how many sort of conflicts exist because somebody didn't just walk over to somebody and ask why and listen to them. But for those of us that maybe don't burn with Learner, what are there lessons that we can take to say, maybe we ought to just go a little bit deeper and ask why?

Marlene Tromp:
[8:05] For the first time in American history, including the Civil War, people believe that someone who thinks differently from them actually has bad motives. So during the Civil War, even when people, when families were torn apart, they didn't doubt the motives of the people on the other side. They just disagreed. We're at a moment in American history, and we see this all over the globe, where people doubt the motives of someone who disagrees with them. They think their motives are actually nefarious. They think they're trying to cause harm.

If we're not more curious about what's causing people to make the decisions they make, if we're not more open to hearing what they have to say, we will tear our own country apart, and tearing this country apart will tear the world apart. And so I think it's a vital moment for us to be willing to suspend some of our rage. It doesn't mean we have to change our beliefs. It doesn't mean we have to change our values. It doesn't even mean we have to agree. But if we can be open to hearing what other people think, I think it can be very profound for our future and healing and actually help us find solutions to the problems that we're trying to solve.

I ran a program when I was in Idaho, an institute called Advancing American Values that was based on the notion that all Americans share five values. It just depends on what order they put them in. So for example, if you put freedom above equality, you don't think you need to wear a mask because your freedom matters more than what somebody else might need. If you put equality above freedom, even if you hate the mask, you might wear it because you think that person deserves to be protected. So it's not that our values are necessarily different. It's just how we prioritize them. And we went out around the state and invited people from very different political perspectives to just answer the question what do you value and why? And it changed the conversations we had at the table when that was the way we began the conversation.

Jon Clifton:
[10:29] Now, I think one of the things that you're well-known for is that at your time at Boise State, enrollment and graduation rates both increased quite a bit. How did you pull that off?

Marlene Tromp:
[10:41] You know, it's such an interesting question because a lot of times those two things are opposing. If you increase your admission, you decrease your academic success because you're opening your doors more broadly. I really feel like we were able to ask questions in specific ways about what was actually preventing students from being successful and what could we do to help them become more successful. So we found that math was a real barrier course for people. And so we created our math learning center, which really changed the way people related to their math courses. So we started to smooth out something that was a barrier for people. But we also were able to reach out to students and persuade students who didn't think they could belong in higher education. We were able to grow our population of students and really grow their success.

Jon Clifton:
[11:36] You have been using CliftonStrengths. You went through it many years ago. Can you talk about that process, like how you got connected with it, how your team went through it? You even just casually use concepts like needs and brings, which many don't. Can you just talk about that background? Because a lot of times executives, they'll go through it and they go, yeah, I get it. But it was more with you.

Marlene Tromp:
[12:00] Yes.

Jon Clifton:
[12:01] Why?

Marlene Tromp:
[12:02] I learned as a teacher over time how to talk about what people's strengths were, how to use them effectively to improve their writing and communication in their thinking. And when I got my strengths, it was a way in which it rendered visible, just like I had had to learn when I was teaching writing, what the strengths were that I was operating with and the ways I didn't operate. And there were surprises. Empathy was surprisingly low on my list of strengths, and I love people so much that shocked me. But then what I came to realize was it wasn't that I didn't care about people. I care very deeply about people. It was that I was making decisions that weren't based on how I imagined other people felt. I was making decisions on the best interests of the organization. So I might have to move somebody out of a role. I have a responsibility to find them a different role. And so I started to understand a little bit better how I was operating because I would have described myself as the most empathetic person in the world. And I still think I am, but it's not how I operate. And so what I found when I was doing StrengthsFinder with my team is that I understood better what they needed. And when they could understand each other better, they were going to work together more effectively. And because for me, the goal is making sure that our faculty can do their work, our staff can do their work, and our students get what they need to thrive, we have to work together well. It's our responsibility.

Jon Clifton:
[13:33] You know, on that point about getting others to work together better, can you talk more about that? How has strengths philosophy helped you do that and build cohesion among the teams that you lead?

Marlene Tromp:
[13:45] You know, I had a member of my team once who came to me and said, I advised you to do this and you don't trust me because you didn't do this. And I was able to go back and look at her strengths and understand from her strengths was I needed to sit down with her and say, I trust the information that you gave me. I respect the perspective that you offered. And here's the bigger picture that I'm operating from. And here were the other factors that caused me to think a little differently and move a little differently than the way that you had advised me to move, even though I knew that what you were telling me was good and true and right. And that lowered the stress in our relationship. In fact, I felt so strongly about her advisement that I often called her in to ask her, even if I thought we might disagree, so I could really understand her perspective and where she was coming from. And it made us a more effective team.

Jon Clifton:
[14:45] You have some of these conflicts, I think, that campuses are facing right now. You have some communities that don't feel like their voices are heard because they're seeing atrocities take place globally. You have other students who feel like their voices are being marginalized, regardless of whatever political beliefs that they have. And then you have external political pressures that you're facing from both sides of the aisle.

Marlene Tromp:
[15:08] Yes.

Jon Clifton:
[15:09] How are you managing that?

Marlene Tromp:
[15:12] Well, I don't think anyone can manage it perfectly. I think it's just really hard. And it's really difficult when people are suffering, when they're suffering because of what they see or when they're suffering because of what they experience, to ask people to imagine another person's perspective because that suffering is so real and so deep that it makes it very difficult. So I think the best thing that we can do is try to set the stage where people approach each other with humility and compassion and where we treat with respect the things that people say when they express their sense of anger or frustration or hurt, that we hear that. And I think we have to be willing to say we're going to stand up and create a space for people to speak. Now, I want to be very clear. I think there are some people who feel so hurt, they can't even step into that space. And there are some people who feel so angry, they can't step into that space. So they're going to stay perhaps at the edges of the conversation and fight for the issue that they need to fight for in that space. But as universities, I think we need to welcome the dialogue. And that can sometimes be very hard.

Jon Clifton:
[16:35] You know, there's kind of a line that you might draw if it's a personal threat. It's a line that you draw if somebody is disparaging someone, talking down to another. But how do you know the difference between that and someone engaging in sincere inquiry?

Marlene Tromp:
[16:53] I think it's really complex. And I think sometimes we're going to get it wrong. And I think if I'm going to err, I'm going to err on the side of openness because I've been so surprised by people's willingness to come towards me when I err on that side. I think sometimes even when people are hostile, they come to discover a place in themselves that allows them to move differently if you actually walk towards them. But I can't expect everyone to do that. And a part of the set of beliefs and values that I have is I can't put someone in a position to feel they have to be the ones to make that step towards another person. And I do think sometimes we're going to be mistaken in these processes. But I think it matters to try. And I think right now, we're just not doing enough of that trying. We're not trying enough to see one another as human anymore.

Jon Clifton:
[17:53] I think one of the other major issues that higher ed is facing is a collapse in confidence and trust. And you know, in our past research, we found that in what we call the needs of followers, or when people say, these are the things that I need in a leader, one of the things that most frequently comes up is trust. And so, what are your thoughts on that? And what are you doing to try to bring back that confidence and trust in higher ed?

Marlene Tromp:
[18:22] You know, I think this is really profoundly important. My very first year as president at Boise State, I offered the State of the University Address, which is an annual address the president makes to the community there. And I said, there is declining trust in higher education, and it is our responsibility to walk towards people and help them understand what we're doing, what we're trying to do. And this was long before it was a national narrative about higher education. This is when we hadn't even seen the kind of assault on higher education that we were going to see in Idaho. It was very early in that process. But I said, I see people asking the question, is it worth it? Should I go? What should it matter to me? And we have to acknowledge what is true, which is that it's still the best investment you can make. There's a 12.5% return on investment in higher education, which is better than any stock or bond. But people who are coming from the working class are not getting that same return. People like me, who are the daughters or sons of coal miners, are not getting that same return.

Jon Clifton:
[19:38] Why not? Why aren't they getting that return?

Marlene Tromp:
[19:39] There's a lot of different factors in that. Sometimes it's because they're not completing their degree. Because either the burden or the barriers or their own lack of faith in their ability to complete it, that imposter syndrome that often plagues first-generation students, is making it difficult for them to complete. Sometimes it's because a lot of people who come from places of suffering or places of hardship want to address that. There's all these pressures on people coming from those spaces that teach them to diminish their own horizon and that teach them sometimes even to give up. And so I'm very committed to helping people understand, to have a growth mindset, and to understand what's possible for them.

Jon Clifton:
[20:29] Our research finds that about a third of students right now across the U.S. are considering stopping out. And half of them say it has something to do with wellbeing or burnout or mental health. And you know, it's not just the students that are facing these issues because faculty are too. And when we look across professions, faculty and staff in higher ed are in that top two with K through 12 teachers, even above healthcare workers. And so this entire ecosystem of sort of low wellbeing, mental health and burnout, how are you managing through that, especially now considering that it is such a significant driver of students either considering or acting on stopping out?

Marlene Tromp:
[21:14] You know, I read that data. In fact, I presented it at our annual faculty event this fall. And I shared a lot of what you just described with our faculty and that we've created the infrastructure we've created around students, which people have often perceived as administrative bloat. I want to be very clear that the majority of that growth has been serving our students so that they can thrive under what are increasingly stressful conditions. So if you're a kid who's working while you go to school, that's not going to cover the costs anymore. Students are having to make sacrifices. Many of them are working full-time while they're in school. The strain on them is much harder. People perceive it to be a function of the fact that education has just become so bloated that it's charging people more and more.

One of my aims in my last role, and one that I'm very interested in working towards in my new role, is how can we meet the financial need, cover the gap for our students so that their stressors go down, and that they can actually focus on their education, not on whether or not they can pay their rent or get their next meal or have a place to lay their heads at night because that distracts you from your education. And so I think we have to understand exactly where the problems lie and what we need to do about them and then strategically and aggressively drive towards those ends. So that means I need more resources for student scholarships so I can help our students have a comfortable, peaceful way to focus their energies on what they're learning. I think in terms of our faculty and staff, it has felt so destabilizing to be under attack. And when I was in Idaho where the attacks were so pitched and we were under so much pressure, people were actually excited about where the university was going because we made a clear plan. We had clear ways to measure what we were accomplishing. And we were able to demonstrate to our faculty and staff that what they were doing was making a difference. And it gave them hope in spite of the hardships that we were facing. And it re-energized our community. And the predominant thing that I heard from our faculty after I gave my first faculty address in my new position was that they felt hopeful for the first time in a long time.

Jon Clifton:
[23:55] This thread between hope and inspiration, and you've mentioned it a lot, what strengths do you lean into in order to inspire others, in order to create hope?

Marlene Tromp:
[24:05] You know, I think that really is that Belief piece for me. I am very passionate about what we do. I don't think there's a greater job in the world. And I am so deeply passionate about that and I'm so committed to figuring out how we do that, I think we can remind people that that's what they do and they can see that North Star. It makes the challenges that are very real feel surmountable because you can see what we're doing and where we're going. It's a pretty amazing gig.

Jon Clifton:
[24:43] Which of your top five strengths or maybe even in your top 10 brings you the most joy?

Marlene Tromp:
[24:48] I would say Learner and Strategic. Because the joy I experience when I come to understand something in new ways, or when I can see something clearly, is so exciting for me. And when I'm able to develop a strategy to address a problem, that feels like a triumph to me. And so I think those are the things that probably give me the greatest joy. But I also, if I was going to say a third, I would say when I get to tell people how amazing they are, I always say that's my favorite thing in the world. It's the thing I love the most about teaching. It's the thing I love most about leading. And I think that's very deeply Belief driven. I want people to see the gifts they have and how extraordinary they are. And I really believe, it sounds so cliche, but I really believe that a person's talents and their life experiences create such a unique lens. And with the kinds of things that we're facing today, we need all of those insights. And so for me, the passion I have to help people discover that it matters and that they can move towards developing those strengths and bring those talents and those strengths to bear, that feels to me like the most important thing in the world.

Jon Clifton:
[26:18] You know, you've talked about these highly public moments where you've even received death threats. When you have moments of fear, if that, in fact, invoked that, what strength do you turn to?

Marlene Tromp:
[26:30] You know, I wasn't afraid for myself. I was afraid for my family. And it may sound false to say that I wasn't afraid for myself, but I really wasn't. I feel like I've had this incredible life, and I've gotten to do these amazing things. And I had a cancer diagnosis once that is a highly swift and fatal cancer. And I sat down and thought to myself the night before my surgery, I've had such a great life. The only thing I was worried about ... I wasn't afraid. I wasn't distraught. The only thing I was worried about was my son. I wanted to make sure that he had somebody who loved him to take care of him as he grew up.

And I felt the same way when I got the death threats. I felt really worried about my family's wellbeing. At that time, my mom was in her mid-90s and she had Alzheimer's. And I was afraid that she would walk out of our house and be hurt. And my son is biracial, and so I was concerned that some of the antagonism directed at me could really harm him, could make him unsafe. And so I sat down and had a conversation with both of them and asked them if they felt like the costs were too high to them. Because I didn't feel like I could sacrifice their wellbeing even for things that were deeply held beliefs on my part because I don't think I'm the only person who does this work in the world. And my mom said, where you go, I go. And my son said, I think what you do matters and I'm not afraid. So for me it was very much, again, about my beliefs and about feeling like I had values to uphold, deep values to uphold. And that passion for my work is so strong, but it wasn't worth making my family feel like they were fundamentally unsafe or afraid. And I'm very grateful that they were willing to stick with it. And I don't know what belief exactly I would ascribe that to, or what strength I would ascribe that to. But that moral driver that I had required me to turn to my family and ask them those questions.

Jon Clifton:
[29:54] When you look across the strengths of your colleagues that you've worked with in the past, is there one that you deeply admire in others or sort of envy in others?

Marlene Tromp:
[30:04] I admire Belief in others, even when it sometimes causes collision. Because I think if you're driven by your values, then even if we disagree, I have such deep respect for that. And that's a part of what has allowed me to come face to face with people who have done or said terrible things to me. Is if I believe they're operating from a space of deep value, then that can be really transformative.

In fact, in one of these programs that we do where people from different political positions come together and speak, I was late to one once, and I had never missed being there at the beginning. I always did the opening remarks. And I was late because my mother had just gone into the hospital. This was just a few weeks before I lost her. And I had cared for her for 20 years. We were really close, and so it was very hard. And so I got to the program late. I heard all the speakers, but I didn't get to give my opening remarks, so I made closing remarks. And I told the group that I had been at the hospital with my mother and that it was partly because of her that I had developed the value system I had. And that's that she had said to me, there's the light of God in everyone, and I always want you to strive to seek that light. And I was very emotional because I had just put my mother in the hospital that day.

And the last speaker in the program that day had been a very angry guy with a MAGA hat. And he was an older gentleman and he had walked up to the mic and he had talked very passionately about his grandparents who had homesteaded in Idaho and about what they had taught him when he was a child. And one of my colleagues who had been a special adviser to me who had spent her whole career working on DEI issues, turned to me after he was done speaking and her eyes were just streaming with tears. And she said, if you had told me when I walked in that I could have had something in common with that man, I wouldn't have believed you. And this is a moment where I discover that. So I spoke, got a little choked up talking about my mom, talked about how important the program was to me and why I had come away from the hospital at all. You know, it was because I really felt like I was living out what she had taught me to do.

I came down from the stage and that was the point at which we turned to the meal but this man leapt up with his wife and ran over to me. And he said, I thought you were a monster, but I've now come to see that you care about your family, and that's one of the things I value the most. And he embraced me, and I had to reckon with what I had just heard this colleague of mine say about him, you know, that it had so profoundly moved her to hear about the impact his grandparents had had on him. And how moved he was that I loved my mother so much. And it was this profound moment where I could see his belief so clearly and he could see mine. And I think if we had a little more of that, it would be great. But I really respect that in other people.

Jon Clifton:
[33:44] You know, our strengths, we talk a lot about basements, can sometimes rub people the wrong way. Is there, which of your top five do you feel like gets on others' nerves?

Marlene Tromp:
[33:57] Input, for sure.

Jon Clifton:
[33:59] Why? 

Marlene Tromp:
[34:00] Because sometimes, like I just, I really want to learn and hear as much as I can before I make a decision. I know exactly what I think immediately. I'm very quick in my mind in terms of analyzing, but I don't want to make the decision until I know all that I feel like I need to know. And so I think a lot of times people think I'm just floating out there in a sea with no idea. And they're like, can we just be done with this already? But I want to make the best decision I can. And so it's easier a lot of times to have a leader will just say, we're going to do X and not have to wrangle with the complexities. But I think in the end, we make better decisions because I'm willing to deal with all that input.

Jon Clifton:
[34:48] And how do you overcome that with others when they're saying, come on, let's just, can't you just call a shot?

Marlene Tromp:
[34:54] I think I've learned that I have to say, we're going to make this decision by the end of the meeting. Or I'm going to make it after I go home and sleep on what we're going to say. But I need to hear this in order for us to make the best decision. Here's what I'm thinking right now. Here are my concerns. If I lay it out, then people don't feel like we're adrift. It doesn't panic them so much. And if I set deadlines for things, then people feel like it's going to happen. We're not going to be in this input phase forever.

Jon Clifton:
[35:22] When we look back in history, how do you want to be remembered? Is your time as president throughout your whole career? And is there a strength that you wish people would remember you by the most?

Marlene Tromp:
[35:33] I think those strengths that I think of as the ones that bring me the greatest joy and the ones that are most important, that Learner and Strategic. I don't expect people to think I did everything right. I don't expect people to think I was always the swiftest or the best solution. But if they think that I was always trying to understand and always trying to make the best decision for the long run, that's what matters to me the most.

Jon Clifton:
[36:02] President Tromp, thank you for spending some time with us today.

Marlene Tromp:
[36:04] It's been a real pleasure. Thank you.

Jon Clifton:
[36:06] Great to see you.

Transcript autogenerated using AI.