These papers include research files, course materials, selected student papers, and documents related to the daily and annual business of the sociology department, including financial reports, departmental memos, faculty evaluations, and correspondence. In addition there are drafts, typescripts, and published articles written by Elizabeth Long.

This collection documents the academic career of Dr. Franz R. Brotzen (1915-2010) of Rice University, who served as Stanley C. Moore Professor Emeritus of Materials Science, as Dean of Engineering and as master at Rice's Jones and Brown colleges.

The Wheeler materials include biology lecture and laboratory notes, correspondence, an autobiography and a scrapbook. The bulk of this collection are two bound copies of the notes from the biology classes that George Wheeler took as a student at the Rice Institute through the years 1915 to 1918.

The materials in the Philosophical Department papers contain lectures and papers delving into many of the topics addressed by the department, both at conferences and in the classroom.

The Rice Design Alliance, established in 1973, is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to increasing greater public awareness of architecture, design and the environment. These materials represent RDA lectures, seminars, symposiums, exhibits and tours, which have involved the general public in issues related to the design of public spaces, parks, office buildings, retail centers and residential neighborhoods.