On June 30, 2019, Joe Bankoff issued his final farewells as he formally ended his seven year term as dean of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, capping off a tenure of transformative leadership that bolstered the School's capacity to facilitate outstanding learning, research, and scholarhsip.

Despite his departure, Bankoff will still play an integral role in the School's activities as a professor of the practice where he will continue to teach his course Global Issues and Leadership. In addition, he will assist incoming Chair Adam Stulberh, work with other distinguished professors of the practice to create a "Nunn Council" in order to leverage their collective expertise and engagement with Georgia Tech, and develop another course offering on law and innovation ficysed in the global legal, cultural and policy conflicts that impact innovation. 

Numerous achievements in the School's history happened under Bankoff's leadership. Many invaluable facutly were recruited, which includes a group of distinguished professors of the practice such as Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, former deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy, and General Philip Breedlove, who served as NATO's supreme allied commandor Europe and former commandor of the U.S. European Command. These faculty additions were critical in ensuring students had access to influential professionals with extensive experience in various aspects of international affairs.

"This was an effort to create an asset, not just for the school, but for the institute," Bankoff said. "[Hiring these professors] was really impactful for our students and for our faculty and it made people feel like they were really working at a place that mattered, and they allowed students to see how international affairs did fit into some spectrum between global development and global security."

Bankoff also facilitated innovations in the school's curricular offerings, most notably the Global Development minor. This crossdisciplinary minor taught students the necessary skills to understand the holistic concepts, theories, applications, and tools used in the global development community. 

The required courses within the minor created bridge not only between units within the Ivan Allen College such as the School of Public Policy and School of Economics, but to departments across campus including the School of City and Regional Planning, the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Scheller College of Business, the College of Computing, and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.