Finding aid for the Xavier University Space Committee records

History of Xavier University Space Committee

The Space Committee began on an ad hoc basis in 1964 and continued until January, 1967. In May 1969 the committee was apparently reestablished as a standing committee and served until 1987 when it was discontinued.

The committee was first established in late November, 1964, by Xavier University President Paul O'Connor, with the title "Committee on Allocation of Space." The first meeting was on December 14, 1964. It was set up as an ad hoc committee to study how best to make use of the space "soon to be vacated in various university buildings as a result of the opening of several new buildings on campus." At the final meeting on January 18, 1967, the committee seems to have gone out of existence (see minutes for 1/20/1967). At the suggestion of the Academic Vice President, Jeremiah O'Callaghan, President O'Connor established a university Space Committee which met for the first time on May 19, 1969. It was given the status of a standing committee and was "responsible for the allocation and the use of all space on campus with the exception of those quarters that have been definitely placed under separate and particular jurisdiction by the President." (see 5/19/1969 minutes) Beginning in 1969-70, the Space Committee appeared regularly on the annual list of standing university committees until around 1986-87 when it was discontinued. The 1974-75 Description of Committees gave this information about its charge: "Reporting to the President, the Space Committee reviews all requests for space in University facilities and makes recommendation regarding the renovation of buildings for their more effective use by the University community." Since the beginning of the 2011-12 academic year, the University Planning and Resourcing Council has had a Subcommittee on Space.

Scope and Content

Meeting minutes and related documents from the Xavier University Space Committee.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

Restricted access. Please contact the Xavier University Archives staff.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Organizations/Corporations:

Preferred Citation

Identification of Item, Box Number, Folder Number, XUA-24, Space Committee records, University Archives and Special Collections, Xavier University Library, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Processing Information

This collection was reprocessed into its current arrangement and description as part of a major University Archives reprocessing project in 2012-2013. This reprocessing project was largely an effort to disband a record group system, developed in the late 1970s, used to arrange university records. The record group scheme had been established by the first University Archivist, Lee Bennish, SJ, and chiefly organized materials by originating office and organizational structure. After Bennish’s tenure, oversight of the archives changed several times and resulted in a lack of adherence to the record group scheme for new acquisitions. The 2012-2013 processing project also sought to incorporate records for which little acquisition or contextual information existed. The project staff primarily reorganized records into subject-based collections. Occasionally subjects coincided with offices of origin (e.g. Subject, Presidents; Office, Office of the President; Collection, Xavier University President’s Office). This subject-based arrangement makes it difficult to identify or describe the collections by office of origin but administrative project records do indicate transfers and connections between original record groups and 2012-2013 collections. During the project, records were rehoused in archival folders and boxes, and new finding aids were created using the OhioLINK Finding Aid Creation Tool.

As of 2017, University Archives no longer employs the 2012-2013 system of arranging collections by subject.

Detailed Description of The Collection