Guide to the Challenge To Governance Project Records,
1969-1970.

The Cornell University Libraries, represented by the Program in Oral History and the University Archives, collected primary source materials and conducted interviews concerning changes in the governance of the university due to campus activism during the late 1960s. The project was coordinated by University Archivist Herbert Finch and Cornell Program in Oral History Director Gould P. Colman.

Correspondence, transcripts of interviews, minutes, statements, broadsides, photographs, clippings, and other materials pertaining to civil rights activism and the work of various groups at Cornell to alter the institution's governing structure.

This collection includes incoming correspondence and clippings from alumni to President Perkins and Vice President Steven Muller; notes, clippings, and statements from various Cornell departments and interest groups; files of the Mass Media Committee, the Barton Hall Commission, the Constituent Assembly, the June (1969) issue of the CORNELL ALUMNI NEWS, and the WHCU News Department; a geographically arranged file of newspaper clippings from the United States, France, and England; circulars and broadsides; copies of papers by students and faculty members regarding their impressions of campus events; a file of all news releases issued by the university pertaining to the events on campus; and letters, reports, and photographs relating to the occupation of Willard Straight Hall. Subjects include the Vietnam War and the peace movement; the rights of women and minorities, especially blacks' rights and the militant takeover of Willard Straight; efforts to change the governing system at Cornell; and related issues.