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The Indiana University Office of Research and the University Graduate School (RUGS) worked with all eight IU campuses to link research, graduate education, technology transfer, and economic development efforts system wide, and to enhance federal, state, and private support for research and graduate education. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) Minorities Fellowship Program, overseen by RUGS, provided support to under-represented minority students in the University Graduate School and to some under-represented students interested in pursuing graduate study. Ronald R. Smith held the position of Associate Dean in (RUGS) from 1988 to 1996. In this position, he also served as Director of the CIC Minorities Fellowship Program from 1988 until his death in 1997. The collection consists of subject files, administrative files, and records on specific scholarships and fellowships.

The Graduate School at Indiana University was founded, upon the recommendation of the Committee on Advanced Degrees, on February 1, 1904. For many years, a Research Committee handled the many graduate research funding requests until the 1977-1978 school year, when the Office of Research and Graduate Development (R&GD) was established to govern higher research at IU. In 1989, R&GD merged with the University Graduate School to become Research and the University Graduate School (RUGS). To lead this program, George Walker was appointed Dean of the Graduate School and Associate Vice President for Research. The merger combined the financial resources of the two offices while unloading some of the recordkeeping and admission duties onto the individual schools within the university. As a result, RUGS administrators were better able to work on cultivating financial resources and to study graduate student concerns. Prominent in the collection are records reflecting the heavy research mission of the university, such as the files on the many research centers and institutions, which comprises more than half of the collection.