Albert Hadley (1920-2012) graduated from Parsons School of Design in 1949 and served on the faculty from 1949 through 1954. Hadley later joined Dorothy "Sister" Parish to form the interior design firm Parish-Hadley. The collection includes correspondence, design and lecture notes, student work and a mock-up for a booklet.

The Parsons School of Design Master of Arts Design Studies program was established to encourage the study of design as a transdisciplinary discipline with the goal of preparing students to become active agents of social change. The collection consists of physical and electronic files documenting the program's development and planning, and reporting on its progress, as well as syllabi and video recordings of a 2014 symposium.

The Parsons School of Design Master of Arts (MA) Design Studies program was launched in 2012 with the aim of exploring design as "a field of scholarly research and an agent of social change." The program became a minor in 2018. This collection contains student theses from 2014-2018, representing all four graduating classes in the program's history as a major.