The Bruce K. Nelson papers documents Nelson's role at Eastern Michigan University as the Vice President for Instruction (a role on campus now known at Provost) a position he held from 1956-1974. Nelson worked at the College for 2 years as the Principal of the Lincoln Consolidated Schools, on the Education faculty and as the director of the Laboratory Schools program before being promoted into his administrative role. Records in the collection document his time in this administrative role as VP for Instruction and does not document his time as a member of the teaching faculty before 1956 or after 1974.

The collection is organized into 8 record groups: Administrative Duties; Annual Reports; Budgets; Colleges, Departments, and Program; Curriculum; Faculty and Staff; Registration and Enrollment; and Student Affairs. Some record groups, series and subseries are more extensively documented than others.

The Administrative Duties record group focuses on Nelson's role on external and internal committees and organizations. Included in this record group is a series of Correspondence, materials related to his role in the Central State colleges and Universities; Michigan Council of State College Presidents, sub group for Vice Presidents of Instruction; North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools; the State of Michigan, Department of Education; The Administrative Council, through the University President; Office of Information and Research, and SPARD or Special Projects & Research Development Office. Materials related to institutional accreditation can be found in the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Also included in this record group is a series of Topics and Research Files which relates to academic issues he faced during his tenure, including Jr. Colleges, and one in particular titled 'Black Unrest' which pertains to the issues happening on campus in the late 1960s, including a take over of the administrative building by African American students in 1968. Materials are generally organized by office and when possible the archives has retained the order in which Nelson maintained them.

The Annual Reports record group are arranged chronologically and is not a complete set of records for his tenure, but are from the major colleges, departments and programs that he oversaw. The Budgets series, is further organized first alphabetically by type and then chronologically. Included in this record group are series for Equipment, General, SSM or CSSM, Salaries and Wages and Unmet needs.

Colleges, Departments, and Programs record group is organized by Colleges first and includes the College of Arts and Science, College of Business (which was created during Nelson's tenure) and College of Education; and is followed by the Graduate School, Unaffiliated Departments, Grant Programs, and Support Programs. Most of the major academic colleges and the Graduate School contains a subseries of materials related to the Dean, including correspondence, memorandum and in the instance of the CAS, COB, and COE materials related to the search committees for new Deans. The College series, especially CAS and COE contains files on each department or specialty within the college, e.g. Special Education, Educational Leadership, History and Art. The Unaffiliated Departments includes files on Contemporary Issues, Field Services, Home Economics, Industrial Education, Media Services, Military Services/ROTC, and Nursing. Grant programs series includes some but not all grant files that came through Nelson's office, one major grant for the School of Education is filed with those records. Support services includes files on the library, and instructional computer services. Given how involved Nelson was the push for a new library [now the John Porter Education Building] there was little in the collection to support this involvement.

The Curriculum Committee record group contains minutes and reports from the committee as well as changes from the various colleges. Some additional materials related to course proposals and course changes can be found within the Colleges, Departments, and Programs record group. The Faculty and Staff record group is further divided into two series, one for files pertaining to general staffing, the other for files pertaining specifically to faculty. The faculty series contains information on the American Association for University Professors (AAUP) the union on campus; faculty council; new faculty hires, tenure, sabbaticals and resignations. Files in both series are arranged alphabetically.

Records pertaining to Registration and Enrollment can be found in the record group of the same name. Included in this record group are files pertaining to College Level Equivalency Program and Credit by Exam; Space and Facilities usage specific to classroom teaching. Files for Registration are specific to the process of registration, which given the analog nature of class registration at the time coupled with the growth of the University during Nelson's tenure, explain the need for this level of documentation. Topical files pertaining to Summer School and Thursday evening classes are grouped in separate series, and both were changes Nelson made during his tenure to increase enrollment. The remaining files in the series are schedules organized in chronological order. They are the semester schedules with notations on faculty, space and enrollment made by Nelson and his support staff.

Student Affairs and Academic Advising is the final record group of the collection and includes files pertaining to the office of academic advising, the Vice President of Student Affairs, and then a larger series for Student Services. The Student Services includes files for Housing, McKenny Union, and the office of Religious Affairs. The remaining files in this record group are specific to Student Government and Student Organizations.