After World War II Van Leer returned to become the President of Georgia Tech. During his tenure the school, significantly expanded Georgia Tech, admitted women for the first time and began steps toward integration.^[8] [9] Women being admitted to colleges and male dominated fields was a topic of debate in the 1950s. Following a failed attempt, In 1952 Van Leer narrowly pushed through a vote to allow women into Georgia Tech and his wife Ella would compliment this victory with setting up support groups for future female engineers.^[10]Van Leer also had a focus on making Atlanta the "MIT of the South."^[11] In 1946 Georgia Tech secured about $240,000 annually in sponsored research and purchased an electron microscope for $13,000 (equivalent to $170,000 in 2020), the first such instrument in the Southeastern United States and one of few in the United States at the time.^[12] In May 1946 Van Leer lobbied government and business for funds for new facilities. The Research Building was expanded, and a $300,000 (equivalent to $3,000,000 in 2020) Westinghouse A-C network calculator was given to Georgia Tech by Georgia Power in 1947.^[13] In 1953, Van Leer assisted with helping Lockheed Corporation establish a research and development and production line in Marietta. Later in 1955 he helped set up a committee to assist with establishing a nuclear research facility, which would later become the Neely Nuclear Research Center.^[14] When the Georgia Board of Regents ruled that all money received in a year had to be spent that year; this was problematic because most government contracts span multiple years. Van Leer created a solution, a non-profit corporation that would manage contracts for research services and subsequently hire the Engineering Experiment Station to perform the research. The new organization would also handle patents garnered through research, and distribute funds garnered from contracts and patents as needed.^[15] Van Leer was 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.^[16][17]