Fonds consists of news releases, scrapbooks, media clippings, annual reports, program brochures, exams, enrolment numbers and yearbooks relating to the Office Administration/Secretarial and Mount Saint Vincent's Professional Office Society and National Collegiate Association for Secretaries

Fonds consists of textual records created and accumulated by the Family Life Institute from its creation in 1972 to its closing in 1979. The fonds consists of the following series: Reports, Financial records, Correspondence, Member Lists, Meeting minutes, and Coursework. In the Reports series, records include discussions of future courses, activities to be performed in those courses, bibliographies of potential readings for those courses, evaluation of the Institute’s success by participants, locations of campus facilities, and checklists assessing participants’ progress in the program. In the Financial records series, there are budget lists and grant funding documents, including invoices, petty cash statements, purchase requisitions, and monthly budget statements. In Correspondence, there are letters regarding the participation of individuals in the Family Life Institute summer program, plans for implementing the Family Life Institute during the summer, various incomplete letters addressed to corporate and government institutions, and letters regarding the employment of individuals in the Institute. In the Member lists series, there are records regarding student enrolment in the Family Life Institute, as well as lists of staff members and teachers who taught courses at the Institute. In Meeting minutes, there are records of various councils, such as the Advisory Councils on Family Life Education held from 1972-1975, committees (such as the nucleus committee’s Nova Scotia conference on family life from 1971-1974), and meeting minutes (such as the minutes of a series of meetings discussing the possibility of a Family Life Institute at Mount Saint Vincent University in 1972). In Coursework, there are records pertaining to the types of evaluation that students would complete to pass their courses, as well as records that highlighted other courses on family life education provided by other institutions. These records range in date from 1972-1979.

Series consists of booklets containing course materials, including a general overview and history of the Family Life Institute, assignments to be completed by students, and student evaluations of the Institute. The series also includes student records, listing their names, the university they are attending, their student number, and their overall grade for the program; the students are listed alphabetically by last name. Some of these records are specific to individual courses (e.g., Education 522), while others are for the program as a whole. There are also records of grades over two semesters, followed by a final grade for both semesters combined. Some records present are specific to Dalhousie University, rather than the Family Life Institute, and some records are handwritten, rather than typed. The series also includes Inter-Office Memorandum records pertaining to the withdrawal of students from the program. The series contains course pamphlets relating to courses being taught from the years 1972 to 1979, as well as other programs and courses offered at different institutions, such as the YWCA, public schools, and the Atlantic Health Unit: Halifax Office. There is also a Proposed Guide for Family Life Education, which presents individual courses followed by a description of the concepts that the course covers, as well as possible methods of evaluating student progress. There are also course schedules, detailing when the courses will take place, as well as who will be teaching them. There is also an article titled Second Wives, which discusses the hardships faced by women when they are in a relationship with a man who has more than one wife.

Series consists of meeting minutes of the Family Life Institute from the years 1970 to 1978, as well as records pertaining to councils and committees held during this time. Series includes pamphlets for courses taken during the summer of 1972 and 1978, as well as correspondence from the Director of Youth Education to the members of the Nova Scotia Advisory Committee on Family Life. The series includes the meeting minutes of the Advisory Committee on Family Life Education in 1974, as well as Inter-Office Memorandum messages between members of the Family Life Institute. The series also includes lists of activities performed during the Advisory Committee. There are also meeting minutes for the years 1972, between the months of February and April. There is an item titled reflections of the family, detailing the 9th annual meeting of the Vanier Institute of the Family from September 14th to 16th 1973. The Transition magazine is present as well, highlighting events and activities performed by the Vanier Institute; the magazine is available in both French and English. There is a newspaper article detailing the events of a conference at the Nova Scotia Teachers College in Truro on the weekend prior to Monday, January 28, 1974. Incidentally, this item was paired with the report on the Nova Scotia Conference on Family Life held from January 25 to 27, 1974 at the Nova Scotia Teachers College. There is also a list of participants in the conference, arranged in alphabetical order. There is also a file with the Nova Scotia Conference on Family Life-Nucleus Committee, which discusses nature of the meetings, as well as including correspondence between members of the Committee. The file contains a schedule of events to be conducted during the Committee meeting, and it also includes an evaluation of the success of the meeting based on the responses of the participants.

Series consists of lists of faculty and students who participated in the Family Life Institute from 1970 to 1978. Series also contains a volunteer sheet relating to International Women’s Year. The faculty lists organize staff members alphabetically by last name, followed by the staff member’s address and phone number. In the student lists, some students are separated into levels (I, II, etc.), while most others are listed alphabetically, grouped with their address and phone number. This series also includes curriculum vitae of various teachers, highlighting their credentials in the field of family life education and other personal information that would have been beneficial for employers at the Family Life institute. The series also includes pamphlets regarding courses available at the Institute, as well as pamphlets regarding retirement, which would have been useful for staff members.

Series consists of correspondence between members of the Family Life Institute, as well as correspondence between the Institute and other corporate bodies. The series includes letters regarding employment, such as curriculum vitae records, as well as payment for offering services at the Family Life Institute. There are also letters between Sister Mary Olga McKenna and those who would present a topic of significance to the institute, such as ‘Living Together’ or Adolescent Behavior.’ The letters also occasionally only thank the participant for attending. Rather than offering payment. Some letters in this series were created in response to earlier conversations, such as the interview potential of future employees at the Institute. The series also contains correspondence between Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada and Sister Mary Olga McKenna regarding the availability of educational booklets. Other letters discuss speeches by Margaret Mead, reflections on participation in the Family Life Institute of summer 1973, and receipts indicating membership in receiving copies of the Transaction magazine. There are also several incomplete letters addressed to various corporate and government bodies, such as the Department of Public Health and Ortho Pharmaceutical (Canada) Ltd. The series also includes letters that confirm the receipt of demonstration kits from the ‘Growing Up’ series of lectures.

Series consists of reports from the years 1972 to 1979 detailing academic requirements for attending the Institute, reading materials available at the library pertaining to the subject of the Institute, and lists of booklets and tapes borrowed by other institutions for the purposes of teaching students. The series includes entries on assignments to be completed by students during the program, as well as schedules for the first day of attendance (called orientation). The series also includes information on the history of the institute, in addition to the physical facilities present at Mount Saint Vincent University, where the Institute was to be held. The series also contains a report on the content of the Family Life Institute program held at St. Francis Xavier University. The series details the courses that were taken, as well as a section with questions that students could answer to rate their experience of the program once it was completed. The reports include lists of faculty members who were responsible for teaching the students. The reports also include correspondence between the Institute and those with the credentials to teach the courses offered during the program. The series includes an article on marriage, an article on sex education, a monthly letter from the Royal Bank of Canada concerning retirement, and an essay titled Theosa ’77: An Inquiry into Canadian Theological Studies of Aging by Sister S. Michael Guinan, Ph.D. The series also included narrative descriptions of the activities performed at the Institute, in addition to the number of students and teachers present. The series contains job postings for potential professors, outlining their responsibilities for teaching and making materials available to students.

Series consists of records with lists of costs associated with various services, including advertising, instructional supplies, mailing, and phone services. Series also includes titles of books to be purchased by the Institute as instructional material for students. The costs of these materials (in dollars) is listed on some documents. The series also includes the costs of various school supplies to be provided by the institute outside of reading materials. Series includes costs for magazine subscriptions, as well as costs for secretarial services, the use of the library Xerox and SAC (Seton Academic Centre) Xerox machines, and the cost of postage/mailing. The series contains cheques from the Vanier Institute of the Family, demonstrating that the Vanier Institute sent money to the Family Life Institute to pay for the membership fee in the year 1972. Series also contains vouchers for the Department of National Health and Welfare, itemized financial statements (expenses and tuition), and letters confirming that financial reports were received by the appropriate institutions. This series also includes purchase orders for supplies for the bookstore, long-distance call tickets, and statements of account for Mount Saint Vincent University. Accounts payable statements, purchase orders for copies of the Chronicle Herald, and budget statements related to services offered by the Family Life Institute are also present. There are also inter-office memoranda regarding the advertisement of the Family Life Institute to the general public and the approval of budgets for the 1975-1976 financial year. Staff lists at the library of Mount Saint Vincent University are present, with the total hours worked by each person (presumably to help with the calculation of wages). Finally, there is a letter from the Université du Québec à Montréal (University of Quebec at Montreal) with questions regarding the nature of the program at the Family Life Institute (in French).

Fonds consists of minutes of meetings of the Inter-University Committee (1970-1971) which include minutes of the sub-committee to explore cooperation with the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD). Also consists of existing agreements on cooperation between Dalhousie University and Mount Saint Vincent University (1973), and NSCAD (1971).

Fonds consists of bound minutes of meetings and agendas of the Administrative Committee (1968-1981).