University of the State of New York Minutes of Meetings of the Board of Regents

Chronological.

From 1784-1903, the minutes were taken by the Secretary of the Board of Regents. Beginning in 1853, the minutes were published and copies made available in the New York State Library. After the reorganization of the Regents in 1904, the task of recording the minutes was passed to the Secretary of the Commissioner of Education and the State Education Department assumed responsibility for their publication.

The Regents' Minutes of Meetings, commonly referred to as The Regents' Journals, contain the official proceedings of the meetings of the New York State Board of Regents. Information contained in the minutes is gathered from the Secretary's notes from each meeting and includes committee reports, communications from the Chancellor of the Board of Regents and the Commissioner of Education, approvals of charters and amendments, professional licensing actions, personnel changes, etc. The folders which comprise the 'Supplement to the Regents Journal' include copies of reports, press releases and correspondence mentioned in or related to the official minutes for the period from December 1935 through December 1953.

The earliest records are microfilm copies of the handwritten journals of the Regents Meeting Minutes beginning in May of 1784 and continuing through October of 1859. The original handwritten Journals from this period are in the custody of the Secretary of the Board of Regents. Official minutes of a particular meeting typically provide the place and time of meeting, attendees, and the listing of topics, events and documents which were discussed. Between 1784 and 1787, topics are limited to the governance of King's College (later Columbia College).

After the reorganization of the Board of Regents in 1787, the Regents discuss the creation of a separate board to govern Columbia College as well as additional responsibilities now placed upon them. Examples of business conducted or issues considered include adoption of rules governing colleges and academies (texts of rules included); changes in personnel at the institutions under the Regents' administrative jurisdiction; requests for incorporation of colleges and academies, and reports of Regents committees approving or denying requests; reports of visitations to colleges and academies; reports on the distribution of money from the Literature Fund; text of the Regents Annual Report to the Legislature; issuance of degrees to graduates of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons; and petitions for special consideration in cases where an organization has failed to meet an established requirement.

Published volumes of the Regents Journals, which begin following the reorganization of the Regents in 1904, typically include official minutes for each meeting signed by the Commissioner of Education; names of the senior officials of the State Education Department; and an index. Routine matters discussed at Regents meetings include consideration of applications for or changes to charters of cultural and educational institutions; and changes to organization or personnel of the Education Department. Examples of additional topics include suspension of a doctor's license due to conviction on a felony charge; deliberations on the formation of a state university system; construction of a separate building for the Education Department; a listing of all accredited colleges and universities in the United States; and use of public school buildings for civilian defense during World War II.

Supplementary materials cover the period December 1935 through December 1953. These include "Changes in Staff of Education Department" folders which contain listings of employees of the Education Department including job title and salary. "Department Reorganization Chart" folders show changes to the Education Department's administrative structure. "Committee to Prepare Regents Examinations" folders contain name, organization and city of those persons serving on committees to develop the examinations for each subject category. "Vocational Education" folders contain plans for New York State's program developed to comply with federal mandates. These appear as early as June 25, 1937 (Box 5, Folders 10) and materials indicating periodic adjustments to the state's vocational education program occur throughout the supplemental materials.

Other topics which recur frequently in the supplemental materials include studies and regulations related to Health and Physical Education (Box 5, Folders 1, 45, 52, 78 and 91); degrees conferred by the Board of Regents to individuals attending institutions operating under provisional charters (Box 5, Folder 94 and Box 6, Folders 7, 10 and 35) ; and the operation of the New York City school system (Box 5, Folders 62, 64, and 68).

Several reports in the supplemental materials address the issue of state and federal aid to schools and other topics concerning school financing, including tax and debt limitations. A "Report on Commission on State Aid to Municipal Subdivisions" from February 1936 is found in Box 5, Folder 2. A 107 page report completed in June 1940 entitled "Report of Commission on State Aid to Education" is found in Box 5, Folder 24. "Third report of the State Comptroller's Committee on Constitutional Tax and Debt Limitations and City-School Fiscal Relations Building Report" is in Box 5, Folder 86.

Other records in the supplemental materials folders document that representatives from eighteen school districts met in Albany on June 11, 1941 to discuss the impact on their districts of federal military and industrial actions and to determine the best use of federal grants for school buildings and services made available through the Lanham Public War Housing Act of 1940 (Box 5, Folder 32). Further impacts of federal funds are found in a 100 page report, "Plan for Administration of Federal Education Acts" (Box 5, Folder 70) which addresses the impact of the Smith-Hughes and George-Barden Acts.

Additional materials related to civilian and national defense begin to appear in 1940 (Box 5, Folders 23, 25, 26, 28) and continue through 1941. Among these is a report entitled "Inventory of Surplus Labor in Rural and Semi-Rural Areas," which was compiled with the assistance of 7,000 public schools which conducted the surveys (Box 5, Folders 32). Activities of the State Education Department, intended to assist in national defense preparations, are detailed in a report entitled "National Defense Activities" found in Box 5, Folder 33.

After the United States entered World War II, an eight page booklet entitled, "Mobilizing Schools for Civilian Defense" was approved by the Regents on December 19, 1941 (Box 5, Folder 34). Thereafter, materials focus on particular educational programs designed to promote national and civilian defense. Examples include, "Rural Production Training" (Box 5, Folder 43); "Vocational Training for War Production Workers" (Box 5, Folder 46); and "Food Production War Training Program," which includes the original proposal (Box 5, Folders 54) as well as correspondence from the United States Office of Education detailing four pages of changes to be made to New York's program (Box 5, Folder 57).

Additional topics of reports in the supplemental materials include the education of immigrants which is addressed in "Report on Education of Foreign-Born Adults" (Box 5, Folder 30). That report includes statistics on the number of foreign-born adults in the United States and in New York State based on the country of origin. The report also details how data from the 1920 United States Census was used to identify "illiterates" and to recruit for evening adult education classes held at public schools.

A 1950 report entitled "Decrease in College Discrimination: A Repeat Study and Comparison of Admission of High School Graduates to Colleges in New York State in 1946 and 1949" (Box 5, Folder 93) contains statistical comparisons of minority acceptance in New York post-secondary academic institutions following passage of New York's Educational Practices Act in 1948.

17267-12: This accretion consists of original manuscript and typescript minutes, as well as published minutes, created by the Board of Regents from 1784-1903.

17267-12A: This accretion consists of two small, handwritten indexes to Regents minutes dating 1784-1872. Dates overlap and information may be duplicated.

Microfilm: produced by New York State Library.

Series 17265 Regents Meeting Files contains minutes for 1978 and portions of 1979 that are missing from this series.

Minutes for meetings from 1853-1884 (NYSL-ocm13686266) and 1888-1903 (NYSL-ocm05272390) are located in the New York State Library, as is a published index of names and subjects from 1784-1903. The State Library has copies of the published journals from 1904-current.

Index to Regents Minutes 1784-1903 (Albany: New York State Education Department, 1906). This index is held by the New York State Library. Call number: UNI 068-3 JOUMB 78-769 IND.

This collection was physically processed and its description was enhanced as part of the States' Impact on Federal Education Policy Project (SIFEPP), in March 2006. The New York Community Trust - Wallace Special Projects Fund provided funding for this project.

The original handwritten journals from the period 1784-1859 were microfilmed by the State Library, and that microfilm was transferred to the State Archives in 1978 as AFM 189, accession number -476.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of this material.