[B]oosted by its largest single donation ever, the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont has established an endowment for its mathematics program and renamed it after the program’s founders.
The $250,000 grant is designed to enhance offerings and provide scholarship aid at the newly named Kenneth I. Gross and Anthony Trono Governor’s Institute on Mathematical Sciences.
The former Institute of Mathematics is one of 13 separate institutes that provide Vermont teenagers with accelerated learning residencies on college campuses for programs ranging from the arts to engineering.
Mary Lou Gross, who made the donation in honor of her late husband, was joined by Trono and dozens of current students and alumni at a University of Vermont reception where the grant was announced.
“We’re here to celebrate the pursuit of in-depth knowledge and the betterment of humankind,” said Karen Taylor Mitchell, the Governor’s Institute’s executive director.
Kenneth Gross, who was a mathematics professor at UVM from 1987 to 2017, began a math camp more than two decades ago alongside Trono, who was a Burlington High School math teacher.
“They said, you know, math students in Vermont can really have a raw deal of it,” Mitchell said. “Many students come from schools where they don’t have opportunities in their communities to pursue math in depth.”
Students say the program has allowed them to explore elements of math that they otherwise would not have been able to experience.
Matthew Ellison, a high school student who attended the institute and later served as a counselor, said the program gave him more than an education — it gave him community.
“When I first came to GIV the summer after eighth grade, I remember being confused,” Ellison said. After all, “we came to the institute to sit in math class for four hours a day and people, for the most part, weren’t complaining … they were often excited,” he said half-kiddingly, noting the difference between learning at the institute and in a conventional school classroom.
Ellison said he had never been in a math learning space where so many students were so excited.
Kevin Beard, the current director of the math institute, said the experience has also empowered him as a teacher.
“To all the educators out there, could you imagine having a classroom full of students that are begging to come to your class every day?” he asked. And on top of that, they are taking “time out of their summer vacation to sit in front of your classroom?”
The summer camp started by Gross and Trono, which was aimed at nurturing the mathematical curiosity of all Vermonters, became a part of the Governor’s Institutes in 2002.
Each year, the math institute runs for a week in June at the University of Vermont. The program is open to all Vermont students from grades 9 to 11 who have completed Algebra II or a more advanced course.
The Governor’s Institutes offer a sliding scale tuition structure so that Vermonters of all backgrounds can take part. Students can apply on the website.
