The records of the Coordinating Council for Higher Education comprise four record series. They include the complete minutes of the CCHE, arranged chronologically by meeting date, with attached reports, studies, and correspondence; a series of those attached reports, studies, and the correspondence arranged by attachment number; a central correspondence and subject file; and records of the CCHE's last executive director, Arthur D. Browne.
The administrative life of the Coordinating Committee and Council coincided with a period of great expansion of higher education in Wisconsin, from the consolidation of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus accomplished by the merger of the state college and the extension division in 1956 and the authorization to acquire Milwaukee Downer College in 1964; to the legislative creation in 1965 of two new universities, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside; and finally to the merger of the two university systems in 1971 which spelled the end of the Coordinating Council.
The topics that were studied by the CCHE staff mirrored many of the educational, social, and political issues of the period 1956-1971. Among the subjects which the Coordinating Committee and Council researched and formulated policy on were academic planning and program development; enrollment projections and ceilings at the various campuses; the role of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) on campus; campus disturbances in the late 1960's; out-of-state enrollment restrictions; space needs and utilization; building programs, including planning for the construction of the medical school complex at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; long range planning; budgets; development and expansion of the educational radio and television network; tuition increases; reciprocal tuition agreements with Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois; vocational school districting; and the phasing out of county teachers colleges.
