Collections

This is an incomplete historical collection of audiovisual, digital, and paper-based materials documenting the history of distance learning at Central Michigan University (CMU).

This is an incomplete historical collection of audiovisual, digital, and paper-based materials documenting the history of distance learning at Central Michigan University (CMU). Papers include CMU publications such as fliers, brochures, reports, and class schedules, correspondence and memos, Memorandums of understanding (MOUs) and contracts for non-Michigan centers and military bases, budgets and financial reports, newsletters, faculty handbooks, and meeting minutes. Audiovisuals include photographs, photograph albums, CDs of images, VHS videotapes, and scrapbooks. Images document faculty, staff, librarians, and students and their families, at various centers working, learning, teaching, being trained, graduating, receiving awards, and attending social events such as Lem Tucker Award ceremonies, commencements, retirement parties, baby showers, and Halloween and Christmas gatherings, Military nurses are uniquely identifiable and documented in the CMU.IPCD Photograph Album, 1982-1988. Photographs also document buildings renovated for CMU purposes, the types of rooms created, how these rooms were equipped, and open houses. Most of the VHS videotapes are CMU-generated promotional and recruitment videos. There are three VHS videotapes of unedited and edited versions of testimonials of CMU students and faculty at the Atlanta, Georgia center, including military members, which were created by Barnes, Chase, and Davis. One video aimed at Detroit Metro recruitment and promotion includes President Mike Rao documents CMU Homecoming for online students and includes two Detroit Spots (short sections or advertisements) which feature John Arnold talking about Terry Faster and Ricardo Solomon, both Detroit CMU alums. Faster and Solomon each make very brief statements about CMU at the end of each spot. All boxes are letter-size and .5 cubic foot boxes unless otherwise specified. The collection is organized alphabetically and by format. The collection is in good physical condition

The strength of this collection is in the documentation of multiple CMU national centers and organizations CMU collaborated with including: Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland; Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.; Army National Guard, Washington, D.C.; ASIS (American Society for Industrial Security Foundation) in Dallas/Fort Worth Cohort, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Central Texas College, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton Joint Education Center; Fort Belvoir, Virginia; Fort Detrick, Maryland; Fort Meade, Maryland; Fort Myers, Virginia; Hawaii; Merrifield, Virginia; the Pentagon; Portugal; Richmond, Virginia; Virginia National Guard (VaNG); Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.; and Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Columbus, Ohio. Having functioning air conditioners and photocopiers and getting the garbage picked up regularly in southern locations was sometimes a challenge for CMU, as documented in the Center folders.

For CMU to teach out-of-state and on military bases or locations, CMU signed and gathered approved Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) and agree to follow certain base and building rules approved by the boards of education in various states. CMU faculty, students, librarians, and staff worked with base ESOs or Education Service Officers, as documented in multiple communications. Off Campus Services librarians and staff were crucial to the success of distance faculty, students, and programs documented in the collection.

Michigan centers documented in the collection include Auburn Hills, metro Detroit, Flint, Mott College, Lansing, Livonia, Mount Pleasant, Southfield, and Troy.

Researchers may be interested in related collections documenting the evolution of CMU distance learning at the Clarke Historical Library and Off-Campus Library Services, part of CMU Libraries’ history. Researchers should search under the various names the unit had over time.

Processing Note: Approximately 6 cubic feet of duplicate, unidentified, and poor-quality audiovisuals and papers, including miscellaneous notes and financials, duplicates, reading materials, and materials with social security numbers, were withdrawn during processing. Scattered issues of two newsletters, CMU Communicator and CEL’s On Target, were added to those with the same title already separately cataloged in the Clarke Historical Library.

This collection of family papers includes photographic materials, papers, family trees, and newspaper or magazine clippings of the Copeman and Reimer families and their friends and family from the Mount Pleasant, Michigan area.

This collection of family papers includes photographic materials, papers, family trees, and newspaper or magazine clippings of the Copeman and Reimer families and their friends and family from the Mount Pleasant, Michigan area. The collection is organized by series, alphabetically, and chronologically. Overall, the collection is in very good condition with some acidification, one glass plate negative with a broken corner, and tintypes which are a bit warped with minor edge damage. The major series of this collection are Copeman, Reimer, and Simonds. Nina Copeman is the main person in connection in the Copeman papers due to her historical family research. Much of the series consists of photographic materials including multiple formats of photographs from ambrotypes and tintypes through color photography. Papers consist of family correspondence, including about family history, materials related to their relative Linda Ronstadt, and the Henry Baldwin Copeman family farm in Crawford, Michigan. The Reimer series also consists of family photographs and materials, with photographs of reunions and family headstones in Palo and Mount Pleasant cemeteries. The Simonds series consists of photographs of family and their grocery store located in Mount Pleasant. The rest of the collection consist of family photographs and materials from the related Brownell, Ettinger, and Preston Families, as well as materials related to Palo Schools, Central State Teachers College, later Central Michigan University, history, and postcards with substantive notes between family members and photographic postcards of family members. The Oversized folder contains photographs of the Henry Baldwin Copeman Farm and Copeman and Reimer family trees.

Researchers should note that materials related to the family’s homestead in Idaho, Kenneth and Taimie Preston’s college photographs, Kenneth Preston’s work with the Civilian Conservation Corp, and Henry B. Copeman’s remaining diaries (including all Ku Klux Klan entries) were donated to the University of Idaho by the donor. The remaining material related to the family’s lives in Idaho were donated to Coeur d’Alene Museum and the Kellogg Museum by the donor.

Processing Note: .75 cubic feet of photographic materials, miscellaneous, and duplicates were withdrawn during processing. Acidic news clippings and materials were photocopied and the copies retained within the collection. Interfiled into other collections in the Clarke were seventeen postcards, two Michigan vertical file items, and a CMU commencement program. In August 2023, a 1852 wedding bedspread from Centreville, Pennsylvania, two Michigan friendship pillows, and miscellaneous family jewelry were transferred to the Ionia County Historical Society, and an Almont, Michigan, miniature tourist creamer or pitcher was transferred to the Almont Michigan Historical Society. Other miscellaneous items without a definite family provenance were withdrawn during processing.