Dr. Tom Dyer was a professor and administrator at the University of Georgia from 1975-2006, serving in the Institute of Higher Education and the Department of History. He held many administrative positions including Vice President for Instruction, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Senior Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Associate Vice President for Services, and Interim Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. He was general chairman of the University's bicentennial observance in 1984-1985 and director of the Office of Bicentennial Planning, 1981-1985.
One of Dyer's administrative goals was strengthening undergraduate education by bringing the learning environment into residence halls. Initiatives included incorporating academic advisors, cultural programs, and teaching into student residences, and establishing foreign language communities with live-in instructors. He also helped established the Freshman College and the Franklin Residential College.
Dyer also took a strong interest in matters affecting minorities in higher education. In 1986 he began the University's minority faculty hiring initiative which led to a doubling in the number of tenure-track African American instructors. He was also the founding chairman of the Holmes-Hunter lecture series, which annually brings to campus prominent figures in the Civil Rights movement. He co-organized the fortieth anniversary observance of the desegregation of the University.
Dyer authored three books, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race (1980); The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History, 1785-1985 (1985); and Secret Yankees: the Union Circle in Confederate Atlanta (1999). Secret Yankees won the Bell Award, the Harwell Prize, two Georgia Author of the Year Awards and was chosen as a History Book Club selection. Dyer edited a fourth book, "To Raise Myself a Little": the Diaries and Letters of Jennie, a Georgia Teacher, 1851-1886 (1982).
From 1982-1989 Dyer was editor of the Georgia Historical Quarterly, and later served as chairman of the editorial board of the New Georgia Guide, a scholarly guide to the state published for Georgia's hosting of the Olympics in 1996. He also served three terms as chairman of the editorial board of the University of Georgia Press and was a consultant for the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. He served long tenures on the Board of Curators of the Georgia Historical Society and on the board of the Georgia Humanities Council.
Dyer was an active community member locally, nationally, and internationally. He served three years on the University Council of Jamaica, the coordinating board for higher education in that nation. He has consulted with universities in the United States and abroad, and was a visiting professor at the University of Heidelberg in 1996. Dyer was a member of the Athens Historical Society, the Athens-Clarke Heritage Foundation, Emmanuel Episcopal Church, the Jenkins Club, the Lyceum, and a past board member of the Boys and Girls Club. In 1998 he was named University Professor of the University of Georgia. He passed away in 2013 at the age of 70.
The collection consists primarily of letters, memoranda, reports, and speeches documenting Tom Dyer's work for the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia, as well as his work for Academic Affairs and the Department of History. The materials focus on Dyer's initiatives to improve education at UGA, his communication with other institutions of higher education, and major projects like the commemoration of the University's bicentennial anniversary and his related book.
