This series consists of correspondence, Joint Staff committee records (1956-circa 1965); committee records (circa 1965-1971); records of the Educational Communications Division, which was attached to the CCHE; and records of state agencies and organizations with related educational activities and functions.

GENERAL MATERIAL consists of several articles and working papers on the history of the CCHE and the coordination of higher education in general. There are also brief biographical sketches of the CCHE staff, staff correspondence, minutes of staff meetings, and the agency's by-laws, dated 1956.

CORRESPONDENCE includes correspondence from several of the directors of the Joint Staff (Ira Baldwin and Carlisle Runge) and from all three executive directors (Runge, Angus Rothwell, and Arthur Browne). This is primarily informational correspondence with the public, with other states, and with educational organizations. The series also contains staff correspondence filed by program area, thereunder by staff member, and thereunder generally by year. There has been no attempt to differentiate between the status of associate and assistant director since the concept itself changed as CCHE staff size grew. At first, all staff were known as assistant directors; as staff size grew, the lead staff member was designated “associate” director, and “assistant” director was reserved to indicate a subordinate status. However, often the same individual was an assistant director and then promoted to an associate director, and it is difficult to determine the exact date when the individual's status changed.

In addition, there is correspondence with CCHE chairmen, Coordinating Council members, U. S. Congressmen, the governor, the attorney general, legislators, and correspondence regarding the University of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin State Universities, the Wisconsin State Board of Vocational, Technical, and Adult Education, and county teachers colleges.

Correspondence of the executive director and of the CCHE staff is also scattered throughout the rest of the series, particularly in the committee records.

JOINT STAFF COMMITTEE RECORDS and COMMITTEE RECORDS document the research conducted by both the Joint Staff committees and the reorganized committees. The Joint Staff directed CCHE research activity from 1956 until the CCHE was reorganized and the Joint Staff phased out in 1965. Although the Joint Staff was eliminated, the agency continued to operate through its committee system, headed after 1965 by associate and assistant directors. In some cases, the demarcation between the work of the Joint Staff committees and that of the reorganized committees is indistinguishable; therefore, sometimes Joint Staff committee records post-date and reorganized committee records pre-date the organizational change in 1965.

Records consist of minutes of the committees, correspondence, raw research data, and progress and final reports. The committee minutes are seldom complete, but often they were submitted as attachments at Council meetings and may be found in Series 1840, under the date of the meeting at which they were submitted. The committee reports may also be cross-filed in Series 1841.

Of special interest are committee studies on the administration of the first College Qualification Test, also known as the American College Testing (ACT) Program, which was intended to predict college success (Joint Staff Educational Advisory Committee); the construction of new buildings at various campuses, obsolescence studies of selected buildings, student housing facilities, and long range planning (Facilities Committee); the termination of funding for county teachers colleges (Joint Staff Subcommittee on County Teachers Colleges); the development of the educational radio and television network with correspondence of Lee Sherman Dreyfus, then president of the Wisconsin State University at Stevens Point (Joint Staff Educational Television Advisory Committee); the creation of two year colleges and branch campuses (Plans and Policies Committee); requirements of teacher education programs (Campus Laboratory Schools Advisory Committee and Teacher Education Advisory Committee); the need for new educational programs particularly in forestry, architecture, and veterinary science (Forestry Advisory Committee, Inter-University Committee on Forestry Education, Plans and Policies Committee, and Program Committee); and the formulation of budgets for the universities (Finance Committee).

Records of the EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS DIVISION include minutes of the Educational Communications Board and its predecessor agency, the State Radio Council. These records were collected by the CCHE for informational purposes, so a complete file was not maintained. There are also budgets for the Division.

Files from STATE AGENCIES consist of minutes, correspondence, reports, and reference materials of Wisconsin governmental agencies with functions and responsibilities related to the work of CCHE. The files include records from two groups which studied medical education and the feasibility of constructing a new medical school facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and from an independent committee created to study various proposals for site selection for new universities in northeastern and southeastern Wisconsin.

Records of ORGANIZATIONS consist of minutes and conference materials, correspondence, reports, and publications of non-governmental organizations with educational functions. Most of the organizations are professional educational associations to which the Coordinating Council's executive director or other staff members belonged; other organizations had related educational functions which made their activities and research of interest to the CCHE. Occasionally, the CCHE staff attended meetings and participated actively in the organizations, but most often, the CCHE office simply received informational copies of correspondence and research reports.