The New School Associates was the first fundraising body associated with the New School for Social Research. Composed of faculty, former students, school administrators and supporters of the school's aims, the Associates sponsored numerous events and an annual membership drive. These records represent the administration of the Associates from the mid-1940s through the 1970s. Art exhibition records extend into the 1980s.

This collection primarily consists of drawings created by fashion designer and theater producer Robert Carreon (1947-2020) while enrolled as a student at Parsons School of Design between 1966 and 1968, as well as drawings from his Parsons admissions portfolio and publicity photos of his work from 1967 to 1969.

Audio and video recordings of events sponsored by The New School's Julien J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs, 2003-2010.

The Designer files collection was assembled by Kellen Design Archives staff between approximately 1994 and 2008 from a variety of sources (on occasion new files continue to be added). Subjects are typically Parsons School of Design graduates, visiting critics, lecturers, or faculty. Folder contents may include press clippings, work samples, ephemera, slides, and such printed materials as business cards, postcards, and pamphlets.

William Merritt Chase established Parsons School of Design in 1896 as the Chase School of Art. The name of the school changed to the New York School of Art in 1902, and to the New York School of Fine and Applied Art in 1909. This charter documents the 1909 name change. In 1940, the school was renamed Parsons School of Design in honor of former President Frank Alvah Parsons and to differentiate it from other, similarly named institutions.

Helen Faith Keane (née Kahn) Reichert (1901-2011) was a professor at the New York University School of Retailing from approximately 1946 until 1977. The files consist of clippings, course materials, handwritten notes on fashion press, print publications of a vocational nature by other merchandising educators, and programs and invitations for fashion shows.

Raymond S. Waldron, Jr. (1913-2002) attended the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (later, Parsons School of Design) from 1938-1941. After serving in World War II, Waldron worked for Lord & Taylor. In 1965, he established his own interior decoration firm. The collection includes his student work, a travel sketchbook, and professional files. Waldron's student work includes notebooks, instructor handouts, sketches and renderings, and tracings. A travel sketchbook reflects Waldron's later design studies in New York, France and Italy. Materials from Waldron's professional career include project files, design research, stereo slides of the Blair House, among other projects, and publicity for his business.

Charles Le Maire (1897-1985) began his costume design career in vaudeville shows of the 1920s. He later served as executive designer at Twentieth Century-Fox. In the 1950s, Le Maire formed his own business from private commissions and film work, earning thirteen Oscar nominations and three Oscars for Best Costume Design. The collection contains seventeen Le Maire sketches, including work for the Earl Carroll Vanities (1924-1930).

Bob Adelman (1930-2016) studied photography with Alexey Brodovitch at The New School in the 1950s and became one of the photographers regularly documenting the life of the New School in the 1970s and 1980s. Adelman also taught at the school and was one of the most well-known photographers of the Civil Rights Movement. This collection consists largely of black and white photographic prints taken for the New School for Social Research. The collection also includes a small group of prints representing Adelman's work in documentary journalism, including photographs of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as photographs documenting life in New Orleans and Moscow, and the New York City Housing Authority.

Seven black and white photographic prints by New York-based photographer Hank O'Neal, from a series documenting artist Richard Hambleton's Shadow Man paintings, which were painted on the walls of buildings around Manhattan's East Village in 1981 and 1982.