Join the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs for a Lunch and Learn Zoom presentation featuring VCU President Emeritus Eugene P. Trani, Ph.D., and VCU Associate Professor Emeritus of History John T. Kneebone, Ph.D. They will introduce their new book, “Fulfilling the Promise, Virginia Commonwealth University and the City of Richmond, 1968–2009,” followed by a guided discussion and an opportunity for audience questions.

In “Fulfilling the Promise,” the authors tell the intriguing story of VCU and the context in which the university was forged and eventually thrived. Founded in Richmond in 1968, VCU began with a mission to build a university to serve a city emerging from the era of urban crisis — desegregation, white flight, political conflict and economic decline. With the merger of the Medical College of Virginia and the Richmond Professional Institute into the single state-mandated institution of VCU, the two entities were able to embrace their mission and work together productively.

Wilder School Dean Susan Gooden, Ph.D., serves as the session’s moderator. The session will be recorded and shared later through email and the Wilder School YouTube channel.

Register for the Zoom link.

For more information, contact James Wasilewski, director of development, at wasilewskijr@vcu.edu.

About the speakers

Eugene P. Trani, Ph.D., is president emeritus and University Distinguished Professor at VCU. After becoming VCU’s fourth president in 1990, Dr. Trani greatly expanded the presence of the university, which became the largest university in the commonwealth in 2007. VCU assumed a key role in metropolitan and statewide development during Dr. Trani’s presidency. After nearly two decades serving as president of VCU, Dr. Trani retired from the presidency in 2009. While president, Dr. Trani continued to do research and write scholarly books. Since then, he has continued to publish books, including “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: Harrison Salisbury and the New York Times” before co-authoring “Fulfilling the Promise: Virginia Commonwealth University and the City of Richmond, 1968–2009.”

John T. Kneebone, Ph.D., is an associate professor emeritus of history at VCU, retiring in 2019. He is the author of “Southern Liberal Journalists and the Issue of Race, 1920-1944,” a co-editor of the “Dictionary of Virginia Biography” project and a part of the team behind VCU Libraries’ digital history project, Mapping the Second Ku Klux Klan, 1915-1940. At VCU, he coordinated the public history component of the history graduate program, served two terms as chair of the department and in 2019 received the Distinguished Faculty University Award of Excellence.