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As a life-long resident of Schenectady County, Vincent Schaefer was very vocal about preserving the purity of the land and water of the Great Flats Aquifer which provided the drinking water for the majority of the county and once served as very fertile farmland.

In late 1974 Vincent Schaefer began conducting air quality studies in the Shawangunk Moutains of New York, located 90 miles north of New York City, as part of his research at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center. This was his first visit to the Mohonk Preserve, then known as The Mohonk Trust.

As the Atmospheric Sciences Program flourished at the Loomis School, Schaefer and his colleagues decided to expand the students' educational opportunities by offering the summer session in multiple locations across the United States. While Schaefer, as director, would make appearances and coordinate the activities at each site—called field stations—the day-to-day running of each one depended on the talent of the highly reputable scientists Schaefer hired for that purpose. Initially, the field stations were located in New York (Whiteface Mountain), Colorado (Boulder), and Arizona (Flagstaff). Eventually, more sites were added, including Socorro, New Mexico and Rensselaerville, New York. Schaefer's contacts from General Electric and Munitalp played a helpful role in establishing field stations and attracting accomplished staff members for the summer program.

Among Schaefer's most successful ventures via the ASRC was the Yellowstone Field Expeditions. In 1960, Schaefer met with National Park Service members in Wyoming's Grand Tetons to discuss the possibility of leading scientific studies in Yellowstone National Park. Specifically, he was interested in the behavior of supercooled clouds that form in the area of Old Faithful. Clouds and condensation nuclei were still a fascination of Schaefer's long after his G.E. days, and he foresaw many different kinds of scientists—including cloud physicists—gathering at Yellowstone once a year to devote themselves to conducting experiments, making observations, and comparing outcomes.

Schaefer saw research opportunities via the ASRC that promised to have national and even international implications as environmental concerns became more public in the 1960s and 1970s. He was engaged frequently to speak about his research, both to other professionals and to "everyday" people who might be interested in learning more about issues like acid rain or solar energy. He also participated on committees and commissions who were given the responsibility of investigating scientific dilemmas of the day and presenting findings to the government. This subseries contains materials from those speaking engagements, trips, and committees.

This last subseries contains official reports by Schaefer on the activities of the Atmospheric Sciences Program and records its progress as it transforms into the Natural Sciences Institute at the State University of New York, Albany. Some of the reports cover the summer program as a whole, while others focus specifically on field station issues. There are also articles published by current and former students of the program as well as some articles published by Schaefer himself.

Schaefer retained many notebooks kept by the students who participated in the Atmospheric Sciences Program, as well as some of their final papers that detail the projects they worked on for eight weeks. Encouraged by Schaefer to do self-directed experiments, the students kept logs of observations and measurements to aid them in their final reports to staff and peers. A few also sketched illustrations to accompany their notes. Some of the papers in this subseries are final reports of the students' experiments while others are thoughts and reflections on the experience as a whole.

As director of the Loomis School activities, and ultimately as director of research at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at the State University of New York, Albany, Schaefer kept records pertaining to the operation of the program. There are many correspondence files; some are between Schaefer and colleagues while others are between Schaefer and the students from the summer program. Numerous students kept in touch with Schaefer well beyond the years that they participated in the Atmospheric Sciences Program, and many of them became successful professionals in their own right.

The majority of the administrative files consist of correspondence; as director of research and then overall director of the ASRC, Schaefer was in constant contact with administrators of SUNY Albany, local colleagues, and other professionals in the field. There are also documents dealing with budget issues, grant applications, conferences, and operation of the N.S.I. field stations.

The subject files contain documents with enduring value that do not necessarily fit the other ASRC subseries. Researchers will find brochures and schedules from conferences, newsletters from other organizations, and updates on research projects that the ASRC was not officially collaborating with but still held interest for Schaefer.