In the fifteen years since President Eugene Trani took the helm at VCU, he has made a much-publicized ascent to the exclusive area atop Richmond’s corporate hierarchy of power. Depending on whom you ask, he is one of the most influential figures in the capital city today. Despite that, some VCU students would not be able to pick him out of a room of men in black suits.
Mohammed Jamal, a junior biology major, has attended VCU for 3 years. In that time he has never seen Trani’s face, though he recalled with uncertainty seeing his name in a research paper before.
After briefly searching his memory, the 20-year-old asked, “What does he teach?”
According to separate lists published this summer in Style Weekly and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Trani plays a huge role in running the city. He topped Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine and former Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, the front-runners for the Commonwealth’s gubernatorial race, on Style’s “The Power List 2005: Who runs this town.” Of the 75 power players listed, Trani ranked No. 6.
Just a few weeks later in August, the Times-Dispatch profiled Trani alongside three other successful and affluent businessmen. They held the power and warmed the seats of many corporate and civic boards in the city, according to “They Run Richmond.”
Andrew Pham, a 23-year-old graduate student studying biochemistry, found humor in the irony that Trani has gained citywide recognition, yet remains virtually anonymous among some students on campus.
Asked what he thought of the president, Pham replied: “He’s the most popular guy in Richmond, and I don’t know who he is.”
Trani, however, isn’t exactly shrouded in mystery. VCU’s Web site contains a biographical page on the university head and his message to students appears every year in the student resource guide. In addition, he has appeared in countless news stories.
Googling his name returns more than 8,000 pages of all-you-can-read Trani. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find the former history professor has a penchant for Italian food and golf.
Many credit Trani with transforming VCU from an ordinary commuter school to a metropolitan economic juggernaut that this fall welcomed its largest freshman class to date – 3,500 students. Some of his colleagues said they agree that he helped put the university on the map with its nationally recognized arts program, engineering school and health system.
Richard Toscan, dean of the VCU School of the Arts and vice provost for the office of International Affairs, described the stretch of Broad Street from Bowe to Belvidere streets as “a wasteland” a decade ago.
The once barren downtown corridor has become the site of burgeoning developments, including new residential halls and an arts building, which Toscan credits to Trani. People know VCU’s head makes things happen, he said.
“He’s not somebody that just talks – he delivers on a regular basis,” Toscan said. Such consistency prompted the VCU Board of Visitors to this year extend Trani’s presidency through 2010.
Robert Skunda, president and CEO of Virginia BioTechnology Research Park, called Trani, who serves as chairman of the park’s board, a driving force behind the research park.
Undertaking such ambitious projects as the multimillion-dollar biotechnology park adjacent to the medical campus, Trani has also been considered instrumental in boosting Richmond’s economy.
Herein lies the problem for some students. They worry that Trani and his administration are too busy focusing on expanding VCU’s empire to the relegation of smaller issues that directly affect them, such as the limited seating in some courses.
Trani was out of the country and unavailable for comment at press time.