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The Corporation awards grants to nonprofit organizations and institutions for projects that are broadly educational in nature and that show promise of having national or international impact. Certain appropriations are made for activities, such as Corporation-led initiatives that are administered by the foundation's officers. The trustees set the overall policies of the foundation and have final authority to approve all grants above $50,000 recommended by the program staff. Grants of $25,000 or less, called discretionary grants, are made upon the approval of the president and are reported to the board; larger discretionary grants, those between $25,000 and $50,000, are also reviewed by a Corporation-wide group, which makes recommendations to the president. (from Program Guidelines 2003-2004 (http://www.carnegie.org/sub/program/areas.html))

This collection consists of the correspondence and administrative records of the University Extension's Home Study Division, which offered not-for-credit courses by mail. The records include communication with faculty members, students, and University administration (Buildings and Grounds, Office of the President, Office of the Secretary, Office of the Registrar, etc.). They document the Home Study division's outreach or promotional efforts (advertising, partnerships with other institutions), operational records (course fees, registrations, mailing services, office supplies), policy matters (academic credit, prison students, high school classes and the New York State Regents exams) and many requests for information from potential students, nationwide and from abroad. In addition to the short-lived Home Study program, there are records of other adult education experiments and initiatives at the University Extension such as courses by radio, extramural courses (held off-campus, across the East Coast), and Guidance Study (a replacement to Home Study). These are the administrative records held in the Office of the Director, mostly from the end of the Home Study experiment and organized alphabetically. The records do not include much about the origins of the Home Study at Columbia. They are more closely related to the evolution of the program and the continued interest in correspondence education after the program was discontinued. There is also an extensive collection of materials documenting other home study and adult education efforts around the country, from correspondence with individual programs to materials from national associations.

Correspondence, memoranda, and legal and financial documents of Keppel. The files deal largely with Keppel's personal and professional life during his tenure as President of the Carnegie Corporation, and also include some files from his years as Newton D. Baker's Third Assistant Secretary of War, and as Dean of Columbia College. There are extensive files of correspondence from and to Keppel's parents and children, as well as files concerning his activities in organizations such as the Century and Columbia University Clubs. The letters from friends and business associates concern American education, politics, business, and cultural life, particularly in the New York metropolitan area, from 1900 to 1943.

The office files of the American Institute of Pacific Relations and the international Institute of Pacific Relations, containing correspondence and reports concerned with international conferences, research programs, and publications programs of both Institutes, and relating to the political, economic, and social problems in eastern and southern Asia and the South Pacific, as well as with problems of American foreign policy. There are many travel letters and on-the-spot reports relating to conditions in China, Japan, Russia, Australia, the Philippines, India, and Pakistan during the period 1933 to 1954.

Minutes, correspondence, annual reports, press releases, financial records, photographs, memorabilia, audiovisual, digital and printed materials document the philanthropic activities and administration of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The collection is actively growing, primarily through regular document transfers from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Andrew Carnegie's biographical information and personal philanthropic activity can be found in Series VII. In addition, his pre-1911 gifts, most notably his donations for libraries and church organs, can be found on microfilm (Series II), in the Home Trust Company Records (VI.A), and Financial Record Books (I.C.1). Grant files (Series III.A), which comprise the bulk of the collection) provide information on projects and institutions founded, endowed or supported by the Corporation. The Special Initiatives series (Series IV) contains the records of task forces, commissions and councils, formed by the Corporation mostly during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to address specific issues. The Corporation's records include those of other Carnegie philanthropic organizations (Series VI), including the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Home Trust Company, both of which shared staff, officers, and office space with the Corporation for a period of time.