Blake Ragsdale Van Leer

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Blake Ragsdale Van Leer (August 16, 1893 – January, 1956) was the fifth president of Georgia Institute of Technology from 1944 until his death.

Van Leer was born in Mangum, Texas. After his father's death in 1897 he lived in a Masonic Orphanage in Galveston. He graduated from Purdue University in 1915 with honors. In 1924 he married Ella Lillian Wall in Berkeley, California. He was Dean at Georgia Tech and during World War II served as a U.S. Army officer, after which he returned to lead the school. During his tenure the school admitted women for the first time^[1] and began steps toward integration.^[2] He was also instrumental in making the school and Atlanta the first major research center in the American South. The building that houses Tech's school of Electrical and Computer Engineering bears his name.^[3]