This collection contains materials of the Academic Council, established at Duke University in 1962. The Academic Council is a group of faculty members who provide representation of the body of Duke University faculty to the Administration, Board of Trustees, and other decision-making groups. Types of materials include minutes and associated materials, memoranda and correspondence, council and committee membership lists, new committee charges, reports, bylaws, policy documents and related proposals, financial records, and other records of the Academic Council and its committees. Major subjects include Duke University faculty, Duke University Administration, and Duke University Board of Trustees. Materials range in date from 1954-2000. English.

This collection contains materials of the Academic Council, established at Duke University in 1962. The Academic Council is a group of faculty members who provide representation of the body of Duke University faculty to the Administration, Board of Trustees, and other decision-making groups. The collection includes minutes and associated materials, memoranda and correspondence, council and committee membership lists, new committee charges, reports, bylaws, policy documents and related proposals, financial records, and other records of the Academic Council and its committees. Materials range in date from 1954-2000. Materials are continuously added to this collection.

The Office of the University Secretary at Duke University was established by by-law in 1903. The Office evolved with the University and the roles and responsibilities likely shifted from person to person. Today's Office most likely began in 1941 with Charles Jordan. The Secretary is an officer of the University and reports directly to the President. A major role of the Secretary's Office is to coordinate affairs of the Board of Trustees. Records include correspondence with Trustees and Presidents, Honorary Degrees and Search Committees for high-level administrators, reports, volunteer directories, faculty data and photographs, questionnaires and University by-laws. Some materials have been transferred to the Board of Trustees collection.

The Office of the University Secretary's records includes correspondence, reports, volunteer directories, faculty data and photographs, questionnaires, and University by-laws.

Philip Stewart is a professor emeritus of Romance Studies at Duke University. Stewart served on the Subcommittee on Library Relations, which was convened by Duke’s Academic Council in September 1981 as part of a faculty initiative to study the potential impact of locating the Richard Nixon Presidential Library on the university campus. Materials in this collection primarily relate to the research of the Library Subcommittee, and include correspondence from Duke President Terry Sanford, who initiated the Nixon Library proposal in August 1981; correspondence from Duke faculty and trustees; press clippings; Academic Council meeting minutes; and the Library Subcommittee’s report to the Academic Council. The collection also contains research and reports from the Academic Council’s Subcommittee on Governance, another group formed in the wake of the Nixon Library proposal.

Materials in this collection primarily relate to the research of the Duke University Academic Council’s Subcommittee on Library Relations, which was formed in September 1981 as part of a faculty initiative to study the potential impact of locating the Richard Nixon Presidential Library on the university campus. Materials also include research of the Academic Council’s Subcommittee on Governance, formed at the same time, which was to examine the authority of the university president and the faculty’s role in making decisions at the university.

The materials include correspondence from Duke President Terry Sanford, faculty, and trustees; press clippings; minutes of Academic Council meetings between August-November 1981; research, drafts, and the final report from the Library Subcommittee; and research and reports related to the Governance Subcommittee. The collection also contains documents regarding the Faculty Compensation Committee and some press coverage of the opening of the Richard Nixon Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, in 1990.

Richard L. Watson, Jr. served as Professor of History at Duke University (1939-1984), Chair of the Department of History (1960-1967), Chair of the Academic Council (1964-1966, 1975-1977), and associate editor of the South Atlantic Quarterly (1974-1987). Papers include correspondence, notes, committee minutes and reports, course evaluations, research files, and manuscript drafts of chapters, and involve Watson's work with the Army Air Force Historical Office, the History Department, Duke University, professional organizations, research and writings in American history and historiography, and personal materials. English.

The materials in this collection consist of the papers of Richard L. Watson, Jr. accrued between 1941 and 1989. The majority of the collection pertains to his work at Duke University, both in the department of history and in service to university faculty and administration. There are also papers relating to his writings and research, his work in the Army Air Force Historical Office, professional organizations, and personal life. Types of materials include correspondence, notes, committee minutes and reports, teacher course evaluations, chapter files and draft chapters.

The papers in this collection include Duke history professor Sydney Nathans' documentation on the Richard Nixon Presidential Library debate, including his participation in Academic Council resolutions regarding the location of the library on Duke's campus; the Greensboro Massacre (1979), when the Ku Klux Klan murdered several people during a shoot-out at an Anti-KKK demonstration planned by the Communist Workers' Party; Nathans' copies of negatives and contact sheets from the Durham bicentennial photography project (1981 and undated); and materials used in the writing of his book A Mind to Stay, including original interviews, transcripts, and other research materials.

The Nixon Library papers contain correspondence (including that of Terry Sanford, and of the creator of the collection, Sydney Nathans); newspaper and magazine clippings as well as scholarly articles; text from speeches; official statements from groups opposing the Nixon Library; and Sydney Nathan's handwritten notes from a variety of meetings. Documents also include Nathan's research on existing presidential libraries.

The Greensboro Massacre papers contain flyers and other mailings and newsletters from the Communist Workers Party and other socialist organizations; mailings from Greensboro Justice Fund and other sympathetic groups following the massacre; media and press coverage of the massacre and the subsequent trials; a police report from Greensboro's police chief; academic and other literature researching the history of violence between the Communist and Klan organizations; and other miscellaneous materials.

The Durham Bicenntenial photography project relates to a project now held in the Durham Arts Council and consists of negatives and contact sheets for a photographic history of Durham assembled in 1981.

The A Mind to Stay Interviews and Transcripts contain materials used by Sydney Nathans in writing his book A Mind to Stay: White Plantation, Black Homeland, on the descendants of enslaved families forced to migrate from North Carolina to plantations in Greensboro, Alabama, and Tunica, Mississippi, in 1844, and the communities those families formed in the following years. Materials include recordings of interviews with residents of the two towns, Nathans' transcripts and extensive notes of those interviews, photos of interviewees and local landmarks, background material and research, the text of speeches and eulogies, and Nathans' personal correspondence with historians, editors, and Greensboro, Alabama, residents.