This matierials primarily pertain to Nelson's work as director of university relations and includes correspondence, reports, memoranda, clippings, articles, and other materials. Subjects include academic freedom and the H. Bruce Franklin case, issues pertaining to plans for the Ladera Dam, the indirect cost controversy of 1991, and the independence of the STANFORD DAILY and the 1977 legal case of Zurcher v. Stanford. Correspondence is largely congratulatory on Nelson’s career at Stanford, but does include other issues. There are also materials on the White House Conference on Education in 1965 that Nelson helped to organize.

Nelson, emeritus professor of communication at the time of his death in 1997, came to Stanford in 1961 as director of university relations. In 1968 he became executive head of the department of communication and served as the department's chairman from 1972 to 1979. He was named the Thomas M. Storke Distinguished Professor of Communication in 1973. In the early 1970s, Nelson helped raise funds to back the STANFORD DAILY's protest of a Palo Alto police raid on its offices, a case the DAILY lost in the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1984, Nelson won the Kenneth M. Cuthbertson Award, Stanford's highest honor for exceptional service to the university.

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