Material in the Administrative series consists of information describing the program and location, partial executive committee meeting minutes from 1955 to 1964, discussions regarding the budget, enrollment statistics from 1909 to 1989, and the major need assessments.
The Program Review series contains records from the evaluation of the biostation program during the budget crisis in the early 1980s. There are reports on the program, correspondence, materials from the LS&A review committee, and summaries of surveys of graduate students, undergraduate students, investigators, faculty, and staff of the UMBS.
The Research series includes research done at the UMBS and by UMBS researchers at other locations. Materials include research proposals, contracts, and final reports. The major research projects are a vegetation survey of the Manitou Islands and Sleeping Bear Dunes, and a water quality study of Northern Michigan. There is also material regarding the formation of an Information Retrieval System for the UMBS library to facilitate access to records of past research.
The series Education Programs consists of two programs: the Groundwater Education in Michigan program (GEM) and the Naturalist-Ecologist Training Program (NETP). GEM promotes the maintenance of water quality and includes a center located at UMBS with literature pertaining to groundwater for the education of communities, and a classroom component to teach about water quality. NETP is a training program for students located at the UMBS, which allows students to work with established ecologists and develop their knowledge and research skills. The 1983 NETP report to the Mellon foundation includes ten black and white, 5x7 inch photographs attached to the back pages of the report. Nine are of students conducting research and one is a group photograph. The photograph on page 36 is missing.