Virginia Commonwealth University will seek state approval to build a $44 million, 102,000-square-foot classroom building on Floyd Avenue across from the Student Commons. The board of visitors approved the project yesterday as part of its six-year capital plan, moving ahead with funding requests even as it awaits word on how hard the state will cut the university’s budget this year.

His office is packed, his most recent book is finished, and Eugene P. Trani will serve his last day as president of Virginia Commonwealth University today. His successor, Central Michigan University President Michael Rao, takes over tomorrow as head of the state’s largest university. Board of visitors member Anne G. “Panny” Rhodes, who becomes rector tomorrow, said the transition has been going smoothly.

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. On his first weekend on campus after being named president of Central Michigan University, Michael Rao attended a “war years” gathering of alumni from the 1940s and’50s. “Their stories were all about friendship,“ Rao recalled. Such memories weren’t surprising for alumni from a university that has amicitia—Latin for friendship—in its official seal.

Virginia Commonwealth University’s next president returned to campus yesterday for what he pledged would be “the beginning of a really good conversation” on the direction VCU will take under his leadership.

Dear Michael Rao: Congratulations on your new job as president of Virginia Commonwealth University. You’re coming from Central Michigan University, whose 28,000 students outnumber the population of its hometown, Mount Pleasant, Mich. CMU’s campus, described as “parklike,“ sounds like the leafy antithesis of concrete-and-brick VCU.