The records in this series include newsclippings, press releases, and correspondence relating to Mendenhall and his presidency. The bulk of the information relates to the beginning of his career at Smith. There is also information about his family, his tenth anniversary at Smith, and his retirement.

The files in this series are arranged alphabetically by the most recent name of the department. Included are news clippings, correspondence, and reports from the undergraduate departments of the college. Also included are programs administered by the departments. For example, files from the Smith College Day Schools are included as a sub-series of the Department of Education. However, undergraduate and graduate academic programs administered either jointly by two or more departments, or by a separate and autonomous college office are filed either with Academic Programs or Administrative Offices. Information about Five College joint academic programs in English, History, Music, and the Sciences can be found in the Intercollegiate Associations series.

The Academic Programs series consists of correspondence, news clippings, and reports regarding academic programs administered by the college outside of the regular operations of the academic departments. Those programs include: the Ada Comstock Scholars Program; the Honors Program; Pre-medical studies; Smith Scholars/Independent Study; the National Defense Education Act Institutes, interdepartmental courses and majors; Operations Crossroads Africa, Junior Year Abroad; and a number of exchange programs. The exchange programs involve colleges in India and Nigeria, as well as historically African-American colleges and universities within the United States. The Junior Year Abroad program files include information on studies in Toronto, Canada; Paris, France; Munich, Germany; Madrid, Spain; Geneva, Switzerland; Florence and Rome, Italy; Japan; the Philippines; China; and Latin America.

The files in the Administrative Issues series document activity in the President's Office which is either of a general nature, requiring the attention of only the president and his closest assistants, or requiring the participation of a number of administrative bodies at once. Included in this series are records relating to a number of general issues, such as administrative structure, the curriculum, the college calendar, disaster preparedness, bomb threats, and energy conservation. The issues generally requiring the attention of the president and his assistants include the president's annual reports, town and gown relations, secondary education, and emeritus Smith presidents and their families. Issues that involve a number of administrative bodies include computer and audiovisual equipment and facilities, and the confidentiality of student records. There is also a collection of miscellaneous correspondence handled by the President's Office.

The Administrative Offices series is the largest series in the Mendenhall Files. It includes correspondence and reports from individual offices as well as news clippings and other general information about their activities and functions. The files are arranged alphabetically by the most recent name of the office.

See Series V. Administrative Offices - Vocational Office

This series includes material on a number of issues related to the alumnae in general as well as the Alumnae Association and its activities. There is a series of chronological files containing letters to President Mendenhall from individual alumna. Many are routine and pro forma letters of thank you for attending certain functions, or congratulations on his successes as an administrator. However, there are also letters scattered throughout addressing specific issues of both local and national concern. Several letters from roughly 1959-1961 address Mendenhall's inauguration, the National Defense Education Act and its loyalty oath, and continuing education for adults. Many letters from 1964-1966 discuss early marriage, coeducation, minority recruitment, and campus unrest. From approximately 1969-1972 there are many letters addressing the Vietnam War and student protest. There are also letters about civil rights, coeducation, parietal regulations, equal opportunity for female academics, pass/fail grading, and the burgeoning women's liberation movement. There is additional information about continuing education for alumnae in the Graduate Work series. There is also a collection of alumnae correspondence relating to parietal regulations in the Students series.

This series includes records related to the maintenance and development of campus structures and infrastructure. Student Residences are grouped together and organized alphabetically. A large portion of the series consists of the records regarding the construction of the Mendenhall Center for the Performing Arts, the Clark Science Center, and the Fine Arts Center. Related material may be found in the Committees & Boards series in the records of the Space Committee and the Faculty Office Committee.

This series consists of correspondence, reports and news clippings from other institutions regarding cooperative programs, institutional activities and events, as well as common educational issues. The files are organized alphabetically by institution, with one file at the end of miscellaneous material, also filed alphabetically. There are a number of inauguration/ anniversary invitations and programs sent on a pro forma basis from other institutions everyyear. These are filed chronologically following the alphabetical institution files. For institutions of either the Five Colleges, Seven Sisters or Twelve College Exchange, see also Intercollegiate Associations.

This series includes correspondence, reports and working papers of the standing and ad-hoc committees and boards of the college. The most central and far-reaching decision-making bodies are the Board of Trustees, the Board of Counselors, and the Committee on Planning and Resources (previously the College Planning Committee and the Faculty Planning Committee). However, college policy and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act require the restriction of the records of both the Board of Trustees and the Board of Counselors. The records of the Committee on Planning and Resources contain the bulk of information on the debate over coeducation, as well as many budgetary and structural issues. More information about coeducation may be found in the folowing series:

Series V. Administrative Offices-Development-Foundations-Clark Foundation (for a JAN 1969 coeducation proposal)
Series VIII. Colleges & Universities-Yale University
Series VIII. Colleges & Universities-Amherst College
Series XIII. Graduate Work-School for Social Work-Male Students
Series XIV. Intercollegiate Associations-Five Colleges-Amherst College-Coeducation
Series XIV. Intercollegiate Associations-12-College Exchange

Other significant committees in this series include several faculty committees, the Committee on Social Responsibility and the Committee on Student Affairs.

This series of records works in concert with the Speeches and Events series to provide a detailed description of the activities and responsibilities of the President of Smith College. Included are a nearly complete set of Mendenhall's appointment calendars (missing only 1968-1969 and 1973-1974), and another set of calendars from the Secretary to the President, Florence McDonald. There is also a large collection of correspondence documenting the planning and organization of Mendenhall's schedule of outside speaking engagements and official functions. The speaking engagements include talks at Smith Clubs, local fraternal and civic organizations, as well as a variety of regional and national organizations. Events which occurred on campus are not documented in this series; that information can be found in the Events series and in the records of specific Smith departments, offices, and committees. The Speeches series includes any notes or transcripts of the speeches given both on campus and off. The records in the Engagements series are organized chronologically by the date of the event.

Along with the Speeches and Engagements series, the records in this series document the activities and responsibilities of the President of Smith College. The events in this series (as opposed to the Engagements series) include significant campus traditional gatherings and celebrations as well as one-time happenings. Routine events include assemblies, commencement, Rally Day, and the awarding of Smith College Medals and honorary degrees. Other events include Mendenhall's inauguration, and the college's centennial celebrations in 1974-1975. The centennial records also include research the president did on his own as well as what a paid assistant completed in part for the 1974 Katharine Asher Engel Lecture and its publication as, Chance and Change in Smith College's First Century (Northampton: Smith College, 1976). Documentation of plans to hold an event at Smith in honor of International Women's Year in 1975 are also included in this series, even though the event was eventually canceled.