Bayor starts term as HTS department chair

The School of History, Technology and Society has appointed one of its own faculty members, professor Ronald Bayor, as the new chair of the department. Bayor's term as chair officially began on July 1.

"Ron Bayor has been a Tech faculty member since 1973," said Sue Rosser, dean of the Ivan Allen College.

"He's gone through the ranks from assistant to associate to full professor. He's a well known scholar, especially in urban and ethnic history, and he's worked a lot on the history of Atlanta and African-Americans in Atlanta," she said.

Bayor has been recognized with a number of teaching awards at Tech, including the 2006 Geoffrey G. Eichholz Faculty Teaching Award, and previously the School of Social Science Excellence in Teaching and the Georgia Tech Outstanding Teacher Awards.

Bayor listed several of the goals that he plans on working towards in his new capacity as chair.

"One [goal] is to make more contacts with the other departments in regard to dual degrees between various departments. Secondly, the graduate program needs more work. The third would be to hire some more sociologists for the department, because that contingent is still relatively small. And then, of course, to recruit some more history majors," Bayor said.

"Most people think of Georgia Tech as just engineering. I still get comments like, 'You mean you teach liberal arts at Georgia Tech?' One of the things I definitely want to do is raise the profile of HTS, sociology, and Ivan Allen College in general," Bayor said.

Bayor hopes that part of raising the profile of the school will include making the school and its offerings more visible to the majority of engineering and science majors.

"I'd like to find some common ground. We do teach history of technology, and that's a place where we'd get to connect with the engineering people. For years I've been teaching a required history course for Architecture. So there are a lot of connections to be made and there are plenty of ways to expand our visibility on campus," he said.

"A good number of our students who become HTS majors are students from engineering who decided they didn't like it or decided that they wanted to try something else. And, of course, we want to help create a more well-rounded student, not just a technician," Bayor said .

Bayor replaced as chair Willie Pearson, who is stepping down but will remain on the HTS faculty.

"Georgia Tech rules are that deans and chairs are reviewed after five years to be considered for reappointment, so with all chairs in their fifth year I ask if they are interested in being reconsidered or not. After some discussions that went on he decided not to be considered for a second term, which is common, although many people do stay on," Rosser said.

"I went and talked to the school to see if they wanted to have an internal search or an external search or both. When I met with the faculty individually and as a group they all said they would prefer an internal candidate. They originally didn't think there was anyone who wanted it, but eventually Ron said he was at a point in his career where he felt he could do this," she said.

"We've known basically since December that Ron would be taking over. The last two or three months we have been in transition. I have had meetings with both Willie and Ron, and since Willie is going to remain on the faculty it will continue to be an easy transition," Rosser said .

As a long time professor, Bayor is optimistic about the additional role he will now be serving as department chair.

"I'm excited, and it is something new. I've been on a lot of committees but this is my first role in administration at Georgia Tech. It's something interesting to do at this stage of your career," Bayor said.