Correspondence, reports, minutes, financial records, printed material and photographs of the School of Dental and Oral Surgery (SDOS) of Columbia University, as well as some records of the College of Dental and Oral Surgery of New York (CODOS) which merged into it in 1923. In 2006, the School was renamed the College of Dental Medicine.

Series I, Correspondence/Subject Files, covers the entire history of the School of Dental & Oral Surgery up to 1976 but it is particularly rich for the 1916-1933 period. The correspondence of the Administrative Board (Box 1) and of the Associate Deans (Box 4:6-9) provide a comprehensive picture of daily life at the School from its founding until the late 1940s. Box 8:3 documents the attempts in 1892 to found a dental school at Columbia, while Box 8:4 includes newspaper clippings relating to the successful 1916 efforts.

Though correspondence diminishes after 1933, annual reports for 1948/49-1966 (Box 4:2-4) provide an overview of SDOS activities at mid-century. Other well-documented topics are fundraising, space planning, equipment and purchases, and relations with the American Association of Dental Schools. This series contains extensive correspondence from such noted figures in the School's history as William B. Dunning (Boxes 1, 11:3-4); Henry S. Dunning (Boxes 1, 9:5); William J. Gies (Boxes 1, 8:6-10); and Leuman Waugh (Box 9:6). Other figures for whom there is correspondence include Henry W. Gillett, Alfred Owre, and Frank T. Van Woert.

The committee records in Series II include much on admissions and curriculum (Committee on Dental Education, Committee on Instruction, Curriculum Committee), while Series III has information on individual courses, particularly post-graduate offerings. Records relating to the School's outpatient services can be found not only in Series IV (Clinics) but also in the Presbyterian Hospital folders in Series I (Boxes 9-10).

The materials in Series V relating to the College of Dental & Oral Surgery of New York (CODOS) are fragmentary and largely from its final years. There are annual reports, a budget for 1922/23, and a commencement program for 1907. The correspondence is largely about the 1923 merger with Columbia.

Series VI (Boxes 22-23) are materials received in 2010 by a dental school administrator who rescued them from being discarded. It contains correspondence and reports of the school’s admissions committee; minutes of the Faculty Class Committees which monitored the academic progress of each year’s class at the school; records of the dental school’s contribution to Columbia’s Bicentennial Fund; and other materials.  The original provenance of these records is unknown

It should be noted that the records in Boxes 1-21 appear to be a combination of those created by the Offices of the Dean and of the Associate Dean of SDOS in the course of normal business, with those created by other University offices and by individuals added later as self-consciously "historical" material. For instance, much of the early correspondence of the Administrative Board contains both sides of Chairman J.C. Egbert's correspondence: the carbon copy his office retained and his original signed letters received by members of the Board. This was also true of much of the correspondence of William B. and Henry S. Dunning, two prominent early faculty members.

Some of these two types of records were still distinct when they were accessioned by Archives & Special Collections, but most were so intermingled that it was impossible to separate them out. The important run of Administrative Board correspondence, 1915-1932 (Box 1), in particular, should be seen as a "created collection" incorporating records from different offices and individuals and not reflecting any original arrangement.