E. E. director, B. J. Dasher presents the tracing of the plaque to Mrs. Van Leer, and (above) Dean O'Brien speaks of the days when he and the late president traveled.
New Building, New Name—continued lack of faculty; and an almost complete absence of research. With the abundant energy, which was so characteristic of the man, President Van Leer attacked all these problems simultaneously. In some cases there were immediate results. In other cases we are today making spectacular strides in areas in which at that time we made painfully slow starts. "As a member of the faculty when he came here, I was particularly impressed by his efforts with regard to the faculty. He fought hard, and with considerable success, to augment the pitifully low salaries which were in effect. He worked diligently to improve the level of preparation of the Georgia Tech faculty. And over a period of years the doctor's degree, which was almost unknown in the Engineering College, has become rather commonplace. Above all he labored to give the faculty status. As an overgrown small engineering college the institution had virtually no formal organization. Under his leadership a formal organization and a set of statutes were adopted in which the rights and prerogatives of the faculty were clearly defined. President Van Leer believed that the faculty had certain prerogatives, and he respected their wishes in these matters. However, he felt equally strongly that the president had certain prerogatives, and he resisted vigorously any attempt to encroach upon these. "He gready expanded the scope of the offerings of the institution. Under his leadership (and, later, following his example) new undergraduate degree programs in engineering were instituted and the non-engineering undergraduate degrees which, when he came here were only chemistry and industrial management, by now have become six. He worked hard for expansion of graduate work. A graduate enrollment of six students when he came here had expanded to almost 400 at his death. Today, the number is almost twice that and growing rapidly. The doctor's degree
was first authorized four years after he came here and by now is available in eight engineering and three non-engineering departments with more in prospect in the near future. In addition to supporting an expansion into new disciplines and a great expansion at the graduate level, he realized the engineer needed support at the sub-professional level and was instrumental in founding Southern Tech which has grown today to be one of the outstanding technical institutes in the country. "Finally, the research effort, which was practically nonexistent on his arrival has grown until this year the dollar volume of research on the campus will be between five and six million dollars. While dollar volume is not necessarily the best criterion of research effort, it is one of the easiest to establish, and it certainly shows spectacular gains. "Due to his vision and tireless efforts, the good povertystricken undergraduate engineering college which he found was, by the time of his death, well on the way toward becoming an outstanding technological university. These were accomplishments of which any one man could be justifiably proud but even these did not constitute his most spectacular achievement. The one thing for which he will probably be best known in the years to come will be his vision in expanding the land area and buildings of the institution. Almost immediately upon his arrival he realized that the extremely crowded nature of the campus would preclude growth of the institution to its destined place, and he immediately launched a vigorous program of land acquisition. During the early years of his administration he put all the money he could find into the program of enlarging the campus and improving the facilities. This was not always popular with a faculty carrying heavy loads at inadequate salaries. However, we recognize today that without his vision in this matter it would not be possible for the institution to have progressed and, in particular, it would not be possible for us to be occupying such magTECH ALUMNUS