Collections : [Columbia University Archives]

This collection finding aid is meant to facilitate access to a number of related publications. The Univeristy Archives holdings have been collected and organized so that users can easily request materials to view in the RBML reading room. For a few items, if there is an existing digital copy, a link has been provided.

This collection consists of the records relating to the faculty and curriculum of the Department of Economics, primarily during the 1940s and 1950s, when prominent faculty members included James Angell, Arthur Burns, Carter Goodrich, Carl Shoup, Horace Taylor and William Vickerey. The collection also includes Carl Shoup's records from when the School of Business was administratively under the Department of Economics. There are also materials from Donald Dewey's courses: outlines, reading lists, exams, etc.

This collection contains the recorded minutes from the different faculty meetings: from the representative University Council to the individual schools (Columbia College, Engineering, Journalism, Law, etc.). Faculty meeting minutes include information on admissions, the academic calendar, curricular changes, faculty appointments and leaves, student petitions, fellowships, grants, prizes, and graduation requirements among other topics. Unfortunately, this collection is not complete. Additional minutes can be found in the record collections of the different faculties. For example, there is complete set of the minutes of the Faculty of Columbia College in the Columbia College records. Similarly, the minutes of the Seth Low Junior College and the minutes for the New York School of Social Work can be found in their respective collections.

This collection consists of the correspondence and administrative records of the University Extension's Home Study Division, which offered not-for-credit courses by mail. The records include communication with faculty members, students, and University administration (Buildings and Grounds, Office of the President, Office of the Secretary, Office of the Registrar, etc.). They document the Home Study division's outreach or promotional efforts (advertising, partnerships with other institutions), operational records (course fees, registrations, mailing services, office supplies), policy matters (academic credit, prison students, high school classes and the New York State Regents exams) and many requests for information from potential students, nationwide and from abroad. In addition to the short-lived Home Study program, there are records of other adult education experiments and initiatives at the University Extension such as courses by radio, extramural courses (held off-campus, across the East Coast), and Guidance Study (a replacement to Home Study). These are the administrative records held in the Office of the Director, mostly from the end of the Home Study experiment and organized alphabetically. The records do not include much about the origins of the Home Study at Columbia. They are more closely related to the evolution of the program and the continued interest in correspondence education after the program was discontinued. There is also an extensive collection of materials documenting other home study and adult education efforts around the country, from correspondence with individual programs to materials from national associations.

These records consist of a wide range of documents: reports, copies of speeches and articles by the Deans, university publications about the academic programs, history, and mission of the School and student publications, alumni office correspondence concerning General Studies and Alumni Association mailings, press releases, newspaper clippings, and student applications to writing courses. These records formed part of the Historical Subject Files, acquired or aggregated at unknown dates. Much of the material in the Subject Files—correspondence, newspaper clippings, invitations, press releases, and publications about the School of General Studies—was collected by the office of Harold Emerson, Assistant to the President and Vice President for Alumni Programs. The Alumni Affairs Office similarly collected materials about alumni programs, events, mailings to alumni, and publications, and the Office of Public Affairs compiled both Columbia press releases and newspaper clippings relating to General Studies news or new programs. This collection thus represents an assemblage from different sources.

This collection consists of William Trapp's lectures and class materials for his Government and Writing courses taught at the School of General Studies in the 1940s and 1950s.