The Nels Granholm Papers consist of correspondence, notebooks, course materials, conference files, research documentation, organizational records, grant files, presentations, project materials, travel documentation, writings, photographs, electronic media, and general professional files. Notebooks include professionally maintained diaries, calendars, and reading and event notes, each numbered by the donor and containing a table of contents. Conference materials document meetings attended or participated in, including programs, schedules, proceedings, and session notes. Correspondence includes letters and emails arranged chronologically and alphabetically. Course materials reflect teaching in Biology, Microbiology, Botany, Zoology, Honors courses, and Global Studies, with a concentration on Bioethics and Global Studies I and II and materials from an Honors Colloquium. Files related to the Global Studies Program document program administration, planning, internships, majors, and conferences. Additional series document research grants, sabbatical activity and exchanges at Manchester Metropolitan University, participation in professional organizations, lectures and presentations, collaborative and individual projects, research topics, service and committee work at South Dakota State University, domestic and international travel, faculty exchange activity at the University of Winnipeg, scholarly writings, and general professional and retirement-related materials.
The collection documents of faculty life, interdisciplinary teaching, and international academic exchange at South Dakota State University during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It is significant for understanding the development of Global Studies and bioethics instruction at SDSU, faculty engagement in professional organizations, and the role of international collaboration in university teaching and research. Granholm’s extensive notebooks and travel documentation offer sustained evidence of scholarly practice, intellectual networks, and institutional service within a land grant university context.
