Rate My Professor Benjamin Ayers

Benjamin C. Ayers serves as Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at the University of Georgia, a role he assumed on June 30, 2025. In this capacity as chief academic officer, he advances excellence in teaching, research, and service across the institution, with deans of UGA’s 20 schools and colleges, vice presidents for instruction, research, public service and outreach, and information technology reporting to him, along with vice provosts for academic affairs, inclusive excellence and academic engagement, and graduate education. He continues to hold the Earl Davis Chair in Taxation and serves as professor in the J.M. Tull School of Accounting in the Terry College of Business, part of the Business & Economics faculty. Prior to becoming provost, Ayers was dean of the Terry College of Business for 11 years from July 1, 2014, elevating its undergraduate and graduate programs to consistent top national rankings, expanding enrollment, increasing merit- and need-based scholarships including for student veterans, endowing four departments and institutes plus 22 chairs and professorships, and significantly growing study abroad opportunities.

Ayers joined the University of Georgia faculty in 1996 as an assistant professor after earning his Ph.D. in accounting from the University of Texas at Austin. He received his bachelor’s degree in accounting and master’s in taxation from the University of Alabama and is a certified public accountant in Alabama. Before academia, he worked as a tax consultant for KPMG in Atlanta and Tampa and for Complete Health Inc. in Birmingham. He directed the J.M. Tull School of Accounting from 2005 to 2014. A taxation expert, Ayers has published 20 papers in leading journals such as The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Finance, and Contemporary Accounting Research. He ranks in the top 5 percent of most productive accounting researchers over the past 50 years and second-most prolific from his 1996 Ph.D. cohort. Ayers is one of only two professors to receive both the American Accounting Association’s Competitive Manuscript Award and the American Taxation Association’s Outstanding Manuscript Award, the latter twice. He has earned 11 teaching awards at school, college, and university levels, including the Richard B. Russell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.