was long enough to be president of one university". The true reasons stemmed from his reorganization of the campus administration, and difficulties between Harrison and the Georgia Board of Regents and its chancellor over long-term goals and procedures. On July 1, 1968, Vernon D. Crawford became dean of the institute's General College. In March 1969, Harrison announced that he would take a leave of absence until his resignation was effective; Chancellor George L. Simpson subsequently announced that Crawford would be the interim president. One notable development during Crawford's term was the advancement of the School of Industrial Management to a college. In 1966, Arthur G. Hansen, then a chairman of the University of Michigan's mechanical engineering department, was named Georgia Tech's Dean of Engineering. On August 1, 1969, Hansen became the institute's next president, a post he held until his resignation on July 1, 1971, to become president of his alma mater, Purdue University. James E. Boyd, who had assumed the vice chancellorship of the University System of Georgia the previous month, was appointed Acting President of Georgia Tech by Chancellor George L. Simpson in May 1971. Simpson's selection of Boyd as interim president was influenced by Boyd's previous experience as an academic administrator, his experience as director of the Engineering Experiment Station, and his ongoing position on the station's board of directors. The chancellor hoped this combination would help resolve a brewing controversy over whether the EES should be integrated into Georgia Tech's academic units to improve both entities' competitiveness for federal money. The EES had sizable and growing support from the state of Georgia and its Industrial Development Council, which developed products and methods and provided technical assistance for Georgia industry. However, due in part to efforts made by Boyd and previous station director Gerald Rosselot, the station increasingly relied on electronics research funding from the federal government. In 1971, funding to both Georgia Tech's academic units and the EES began to suffer due to a sharp decline in state funds combined with cuts to federal science, research, and education funding after the end of the Space Race funding boom. Similar institutions, such as the Battelle Memorial Institute, Stanford Research Institute, and the Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute had weathered this storm by becoming exceedingly good at obtaining research contracts. Boyd's predecessor Arthur G. Hansen's "bold and controversial" solution to both entities' problems was to completely integrate