Board approves Assembly's mission statement

Thanks to David Shiner, we learn today that on Friday May 6, the Board of Trustees adopted a slightly modified version of the mission statement that was approved by the Assembly last year. Here is Shimer's new mission statement:

Shimer College provides and preserves education centered on discussion of enduring questions and issues. Historically influential original sources are studied through Socratic questioning, in small seminar classes and following the kind of Great Books curriculum advocated by Robert Maynard Hutchins. The core values informing education at Shimer are free inquiry, dialog, critical open-mindedness, and integration of disciplines. The College offers all members of its community the opportunity to participate meaningfully in deciding the future of the institution. A Shimer education demands much of both the intellect and the character of students, and prepares them for responsible citizenship and the examined life.

Huzzah!

(And while I'm generally on the Assembly's side in these matters, I am depthlessly grateful to the Board for eliminating the unnecessary dashes in the Assembly version.)

How Patrick Parker Gets His Way

I would like to begin by thanking Patrick Parker for finally making the text of the 2007 agreement between Shimer College and the Aequus Foundation available to the community, shortly before the recent excitement. Granted, it was a few weeks late, but it's the thought that counts!

Trustee Patrick Parker played a key role in engineering both Thomas Lindsay's hiring in 2008 and the adoption of Lindsay's slipshod mission statement in 2010. We in the external community now have enough information about how these events unfolded to draw some general conclusions about how Patrick Parker gets his way.

Of course, in drawing these conclusions, there are only two data points to work from. Thus, it is likely that some parts of this pattern are illusory. But the similarities between these two events are striking. Here is how it seems to work:

1. Patrick Parker identifies some legitimate concern to which he just happens to have a privileged connection.

In 2008, this was the concern that the "anonymous donor" (Barre Seid) might reconsider his donations if a substandard president were chosen. It's not clear whether Barre Seid even knew that his identity was being invoked in this way. However, since Parker was the only conduit of information between Seid and the Board, nobody was in a position to contradict him.

In 2010, Parker's legitimate concern was that a contract existed between Shimer and Aequus that required certain changes to the mission statement. Although we do not know exactly what was said in the Board meeting, Parker certainly managed to convey the impression that both President Bill Rice and the Dean of the College had been signatories to this contract. We now know that this contract was a vague and probably unenforceable agreement to which a Development Office assistant had signed as the "authorized officer" of Shimer . However, since Parker didn't have a copy of the agreement handy (and neither did anyone else, as he hadn't happened to mention it until just before the meeting), no substantive questions about the agreement could be asked or answered.

2. Parker exploits the uncertainty of this concern so that he can present some specific action linked to his personal agenda as the only workable solution.

Did it make sense that a donor concerned about executive qualifications would prefer a candidate (Tom Lindsay) who had not been properly vetted and had never run a college before? Of course not. But since only Parker could know what the "anonymous donor's" exact concerns were, nobody was in a position to question how Parker presented them. Did it make sense that an agreement never mentioned before would require the sudden adoption of a poorly-written mission statement that placed extraordinary emphasis on a couple weeks' worth of Soc 2 readings? Of course not -- but once again, since only Parker knew what was in the contract, nobody was in a position to question its relevance.

3. The vote is held, reasonable people do the only reasonable thing based on the available information...

... and Parker gets exactly what he wants.

Patrick Parker is clearly a talented boardroom manipulator. We could all learn a lot from him. It is a great tribute to the sharp and observant intellects on the Shimer Board that, despite such skillful manipulation, the vast majority of swayable Trustees voted against the Lindsay mission statement in February. An even greater tribute, of course, is the outcome of the recent meeting in which Tom Lindsay was, at long last, relieved of his duties.

Shimer College Assembly Approves New Mission Statement

In its March 21 meeting, the Assembly of Shimer College unanimously approved the following mission statement, selected from among a total 10 candidate statements that had been put forward.

Shimer College—the Great Books College of Chicago—provides and preserves education centered on discussion of enduring questions and issues. Historically influential original sources are studied through Socratic questioning, in small seminar classes and following the curriculum developed by Robert Maynard Hutchins. The core values informing education at Shimer are free inquiry, dialog, critical open-mindedness, and integration of disciplines. As a community, the College offers all its members the opportunity to participate meaningfully in deciding the future of the institution. A Shimer education demands much of both the intellect and the character of students, and prepares them for responsible citizenship and the examined life.

The Assembly further approved a request to the Board of Trustees that the statement be formally adopted, without modification, at the May meeting.

Agenda for the Special Assembly of March 21st

THE ASSEMBLY OF SHIMER COLLEGE

AGENDA FOR THE SPECIAL MEETING OF MARCH 21, 2010


I Motion, motivated by Barbara Stone

The Assembly shall elect three mission statement proposals, by vote count, from among those that have been submitted to comply with the motion passed at the Assembly of February 28, and send them to the Board of Trustees with an invitation to the Board to choose one of them as the mission statement of Shimer College.

§

Motion passed at the Assembly of February 28:

The Assembly will endeavor to provide a mission statement enjoying broad support from the community, including the board, staff, faculty, students and alumni of Shimer College by March 21, 2010.


II Election of a mission statement or statements, in accordance with the motion passed at the Assembly of February 28, and with the motion above (agenda item I) if it has been passed.

Proposed mission statements (in alphabetical order by last name of first author):

1)

It is the Mission of Shimer College to cultivate habits of critical inquiry and an ethic of participation, and to thereby enable students to enter the world as active citizens who, on the model of Socrates, endeavor to maximize intellectual liberty and relentlessly pursue the examined life.

Shimer is a small, tight-knit community where students and facilitators cooperatively inquire into the questions and problems contained in, and raised by, the 'Great Books' of the Hutchins Curriculum. This inquiry seeks both to take up the investigations at the heart of these texts and to reveal them as contingent and polysemous; through such inquiry students identify and interrogate the unexamined assumptions which bind these texts and this tradition, and thus prepare themselves to reflect upon the extent to which their thinking may be comparably bound, and how they might begin to liberate themselves from such bondage.

All classes at Shimer are dialogue-based and predicated on an egalitarian ethic of participation. In keeping with this ethic, students acknowledge their reciprocal obligations to do close reading, careful listening, and thoughtful, respectful responding, facilitators work to keep the classroom a safe space for serious intellectual work, and the College offers the entire community - students, facilitators, staff, alumni, and trustees - the opportunity to participate in the Assembly, the democratic component of the college's governance model.

Bill Arnold

2)

Shimer College fosters independent thought and analysis applied across a broad liberal arts core curriculum linking the humanities, and the natural and social sciences. Agreeing with Socrates that “the unexamined life is not worth living," our mission is to graduate students who have questioned their assumptions and who appreciate the need to understand presuppositions, habits, beliefs and the power of prejudices. Liberal education at Shimer offers a setting for students to learn for, through and in an atmosphere of liberty. The goal of liberty should be the pursuit of truth and we believe that the best perspective on how this may be accomplished is by active engagement in the Great Dialogue. Using the works of the greatest accomplishments of Western culture for the starting point of this dialogue, students develop an intellectual framework for lifelong learning and responsible citizenship to preserve freedom of enquiry and expression. Our motto, Non ministrari sed ministrare, (“To serve rather than to be served”), reflects our commitment to work for the greater good over partisan or parochial interests.

Barry Carroll, Harold Stone, Simon Creek, Erik Badger

3)

Shimer welcomes students who seek to learn how to think independently and to freely choose their personal values. To this end students (1) attend small seminar classes where the Great Books and other original sources are explored using the Socratic method of open inquiry, and (2) participate in a democratic process of shared governance of college affairs with faculty and administrative staff. This affords ample opportunity to examine alternatives dispassionately, to put ideas into practice, and to integrate one's unfolding intellectual understanding within the broader cycle of deliberation and action.

The core curriculum, based on innovation by Robert Maynard Hutchins, includes course sequences in the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities, followed by integrative courses in History and Philosophy. The educational community at Shimer cultivates the kind of collegial interplay that fosters individual autonomy, the ability to think critically, tolerance for a diverse spectrum of values, skillful approach toward mutual understanding, and principled action: the essential qualities that enable lifelong learning and active citizenship in the world at large.

Russell Davis

4)

Shimer College—the Great Books College of Chicago—provides and preserves education centered on discussion of enduring questions and issues. Historically influential original sources are studied through Socratic questioning, in small seminar classes and following the curriculum developed by Robert Maynard Hutchins. The core values informing education at Shimer are free inquiry, dialog, critical open-mindedness, and integration of disciplines. As a community, the College offers all its members the opportunity to participate meaningfully in deciding the future of the institution. A Shimer education demands much of both the intellect and the character of students, and prepares them for responsible citizenship and the examined life.

Albert B. Fernandez

5)

The Shimer College community engages with ideas embedded in works of enduring value, enabling its members to develop skills of critical and creative thinking. Consistent with Shimer's traditional Great Books curriculum, first developed at the University of Chicago under President Robert Maynard Hutchins, emphasis is placed on original sources. These works are are discussed in small classes using a contemporary adaptation of the Socratic method. A Shimer liberal education, which includes active

participation in governance of the community by its members, is designed to enable its graduates to become active citizens in a free society as well as to be engaged productively on issues of global concern.

Robert O Keohane

6)

Shimer College is an independent undergraduate liberal arts college dedicated to developing students' abilities to interpret, reason with, and express ideas free of any commitments to particular subject matters, methodologies, doctrines, professions, disciplines or creeds, but prepared to be informed by any of them. Following the Hutchins' Curriculum, all Shimer students and their facilitators read the original expressions of reasoned interpretations of natural science, social science, individual human creativity and the integrating principles relating these aspects of reality as embodied in the Great Books of Western Civilization and its global context These works and the questions they raise are engaged together in small group discussions in Socratic style, and individually confronted by students in written essays and examinations.

In the spirit of Frances Wood Shimer, whose labors gave birth to this institution and whose name we still bear, we embrace the active participation and mutual empowerment of all members of the Shimer community in the rights and duties of self governance as the proper means to secure the context of reciprocal respect and support that allows the education we seek to take place.

Eric Nicholson

7)

In its long history, Shimer College has always engaged its students and community members toward meaningful and unselfish participation in the world. Shimer College follows the Socratic Method of shared inquiry, requiring of students and faculty alike the recognition of each inquirer's fundamental dignity and equality, for the sake of unselfish participation in the world. Shimer College is thus an intentional community, recognizing that participation in this intellectual dialogue demands that each member has both an opportunity and a responsibility to participate in the College's governance.

The College, in the spirit of Robert Hutchins, challenges its members to examine those great works (Great Books) of all civilizations, which have influenced thinkers throughout history. The College, through dialogue, cultivates an unwavering and demanding intellectual liberty and honesty. It endeavors to move its members beyond either unquestioning acceptance of authority or its automatic mistrust and toward responsible and active citizenship.

Mike Weinman, Mark Robinson, Chris McGlynn

8)

Shimer College's mission is to educate through close study of the Great Books conducted in the Socratic dialogue method. The education and intellectual liberty that Shimer pursues depends on an environment that cultivates freedom of thought and conscience necessary for participation as citizens in a democracy and in the world at large. The end of a Shimer education is the capacity to set aside unexamined assumptions in the dispassionate search for truth as the model for a lifelong education.

Gerald Welch

III

Motion, motivated by the Agenda Committee

The Assembly instructs the Speaker to address and disseminate the acts of this day to all the constituencies of Shimer College, including Trustees and alumni.

IV Announcements

§

A tabled motion or resolution is taken from the table upon passage of a motion to do so, which requires a simple majority. A motion to take from the table may be introduced before or after, but not during, consideration of any item on the agenda.

At the meeting of February 28, 2010, the following resolution was tabled:

The Assembly declares that it has no confidence in the ability of President Thomas Lindsay to lead Shimer College.

Announcement of Special Assembly March 21

Citizens of Shimer College,

A special unscheduled meeting of the Assembly will take place on Sunday, March 21, starting at 4 pm central time, in the Cinderella Lounge. The Agenda Committee is convening the Assembly to comply with the Carroll-Badger-Shiner motion passed by the Assembly at the special meeting of February 28, which reads as follows:

The Assembly will endeavor to provide a mission statement enjoying broad support from the community, including the board, staff, faculty, students and alumni of Shimer College by March 21, 2010.

The agenda will include motions for electing a new mission statement and will be disseminated on Tuesday, March 16. Those who are writing mission statement proposals are asked to submit them by noon on that date (to a.fernandez@shimer.edu ) so that the community has time to study the proposals before meeting. However, in recognition of the short amount of time since the motion, Dean’s Break, this notice, and the upcoming meeting, statement revisions and additional proposals will be accepted by the Committee until Friday, March 19, 9 pm cst. Updated editions of the Agenda will be sent between Tuesday and Saturday if need be.

As at the February 7th meeting of the Assembly, there will be discussion of Shimer’s mission and of the mission statement proposals before the election begins, but amending, including friendly amending, of the text of the various statements will again be out of order. The Committee believes that last-minute wordsmithing during the meeting would take up a completely prohibitive amount of time, and could result in poor and hasty rewriting of a statement of the greatest importance to the College. The Speaker will entertain objections to this procedure from the floor (amending as usual will be in order for other agenda items). Members who would like changes in any of the proposed statements on the Agenda should contact the authors with suggested emendations. Some proposals have already been circulated, and contact information for authors will be provided when the agenda is distributed.

The Carroll-Shiner-Badger motion calls for a mission statement with “broad support from the community, including the Board, staff, faculty, students and alumni.” Although the Committee will not judge whether proposals received are in accord with the intent of motion or not, it may be helpful to those who are composing or revising statement proposals to consider the following list of content components and qualities that members of the community have advocated in various forums since the review of our mission statement began in the fall. The list is by no means intended by the Committee as a set of requirements for proposals.


1 written clearly and correctly, and in a tone that commands respect
2 no longer than two paragraphs
3 gives a comprehensive and accurate sense of Shimer to outsiders
4 distinguishes Shimer from other colleges, including St. John’s
5 can realistically be used in soliciting donors, including donors with definite political views
6 mentions small seminar classes
7 mentions original sources
8 mentions the Great Books
9 mentions the Socratic method
10 mentions or invokes shared governance
11 mentions or invokes active citizenship
12 content substantially refers to education and intellectual values
13 mentions freedom of the mind
14 includes the word “liberty”
15 mentions the Hutchins Curriculum


Apart from mission statement proposals, the Committee will also consider other agenda item proposals for this or a future meeting of the Assembly. Any member of the Assembly, including alumni, can suggest agenda items by sending them to any member of the Agenda Committee (names below--Shimer eml addresses consist of the first initial, dot, last name, and @shimer.edu). As has been the case since the beginning of the academic year, we expect the March 21 meeting to be quite lengthy, and will exercise judgment as to which possible agenda items may be taken up at a later date. Again, considering the importance of the issues before us, we ask members of the Assembly to prepare to stay late. There will be short recesses during the meeting. Because of the special nature of this meeting there will be no approval of minutes or committee reports, though time will be set aside for announcements.

As before, members who are unable to attend the meeting but who would like to address the Assembly may send written messages to the Speaker and they will be forwarded to the membership. In keeping with Assembly precedent, in the interest of saving time, and to avoid preferential recognition of absent members, such messages will not be read or distributed during the meeting. For prior distribution, they must be received no later than Saturday, March 21, 9 pm cst, but the Committee cannot guarantee all messages will be disseminated if their number turns out to be overwhelming. To make it easier to forward messages to the community, please send them to the Speaker as attachments to e-mail, and not as text within the e-mail.

We expect that the March 21st meeting will be webcast as prior meetings have been. If it will be, access information will be disseminated to members. Please bear in mind that, according to the Constitution of the Assembly, only members present may address the Assembly, vote, or introduce motions.

Both Trustees and alumni are members of the Assembly, though alumni are not voting members. Since it is not possible to send this message to all alumni, those who are recipients should feel free to forward it to alumni they know. The Committee, on behalf of the internal community, welcomes Trustees, alumni, and all other members to the meeting.

Albert

Albert B Fernandez

Speaker of the Assembly

Resolutions of 2/28 Assembly

In the emergency Assembly of 2/28, the community voted to reject president Thomas Lindsay's so-called "mission statement."

The vote of no confidence in the so-called president was tabled for the time being.

In addition, it was resolved to seek a mission statement enjoying broad support from all constituencies, this process concluding no later than March 21st.

The text of the adopted resolutions follows.

I.Resolved:

Whereas the Board of Trustees adopted a statement called a “mission statement,” written by President Thomas Lindsay, on February 20, 2010;

Whereas this statement is without the express support of the faculty, the students, the administrative staff, or the vast majority of alumni who have addressed it, and is upheld only by 18 out of 34 Trustees;

Whereas the Assembly by overwhelming majority and the Faculty unanimously have voted to retain the current mission statement at least for the time being;

Whereas the statement approved by the Board is not consistent with the criterion of the College’s academic accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, that “Understanding of and support of the mission pervade the organization” (Accreditation Criterion 1c);

Whereas the statement, unlike all other mission statement proposals, was never submitted to the Self-Study Group, or brought to the Assembly, but was sent exclusively to Trustees, and only five days before they were to vote on it;

Whereas the statement was approved by the Board after a major donor said, one day before the Board plenary, that funding would cease if a new mission statement were not adopted;

Whereas shortly before the Board plenary President Lindsay urged the Trustees on the Executive Committee to resign if they would not vote for his statement, and told another Trustee that he would “have to go” or words to that effect if he did not vote for his statement; and,

Whereas the statement was voted on by the Board without the customary notification of a vote in the meeting agenda, after only 75 minutes of consideration, and without observance of equal time for those opposed;

Therefore,

The Assembly of Shimer College does not recognize the legitimacy or authority of this so-called “mission statement.”

(Adopted by a vote of 69 for, 1 against, and 2 abstentions)

II.The Assembly will endeavor to provide a mission statement enjoying broad support from the community, including the board, staff, faculty, students and alumni of Shimer College by March 21, 2010.

(Motion passed by 59 for, 1 against, and 2 abstentions)

Special Meeting of the Assembly to Take Place::::Sunday, February 28, starting at 4 pm, in the Cinderella Lounge.

Citizens of Shimer College,


A special unscheduled meeting of the Assembly will take place this Sunday, February 28, starting at 4 pm, in the Cinderella Lounge. The Agenda Committee is convening the Assembly in response to requests from throughout the community for an emergency meeting after the Board of Trustees plenary last Saturday. The agenda for the meeting will be published shortly and no later than tomorrow.

Because of the special nature of this meeting there will be no approval of minutes or committee reports, though time will be set aside for announcements. It is not clear how lengthy this meeting will be, but, given the importance of the issues before us, members are asked to prepare to stay late if need be.

Members who are unable to attend the meeting but who would like to address the Assembly may send written messages to the Speaker and they will be forwarded to the membership. In keeping with Assembly precedent, in the interest of saving time, and to avoid preferential recognition of absent members, such messages will not be read or distributed during the meeting. For prior distribution, they must be received no later than Saturday, 9 pm cst, but the Committee cannot guarantee all messages will be disseminated if their number turns out to be overwhelming.

Since Sunday’s will be an unscheduled meeting, we cannot say with assurance that it will be webcast, as prior meetings have been, but preparations are being made for online access, and, if the meeting will be available on the internet, website information will be disseminated to members of the community. Please bear in mind that, according to the Constitution of the Assembly, only members present may address the Assembly, vote, or introduce motions.

Both Trustees and alumni are members of the Assembly, though alumni are not voting members. Since it is not possible to send this message to all alumni, those who are recipients should feel free to forward it to alumni whom they know are planning to attend. The Committee, on behalf of the internal community, welcomes Trustees, alumni, and all other members to the meeting.




Albert B Fernandez

Speaker of the Assembly
For the Agenda Committee
(Simon Creek, Jim Donovan, Meg Nelson)

Letter from the Faculty to the Board Re Mission Statement Changes

The Faculty supports unanimously the Assembly's recent vote to uphold the current mission statement of Shimer College. In doing so we confirm and uphold our responsibility for the College's mission itself: in word, education.

The Faculty and Assembly together, rather than President Lindsay by himself, have the standing to define the College's mission. As Chris Nelson recently wrote, the Faculty and Assembly have for decades labored against "almost insuperable challenges" to save the College itself and greatly enrich its incomparable instructional program. But President Lindsay turns his back to this history, revealing just days ago a proposed mission statement restating "guideposts" that have been resoundingly rejected by the internal community and alumni both.

More trying still, President Lindsay presumes to use his mission statement as a test of the Faculty's continuing commitment to the College. He has indicated to us that if the Board adopts his statement, he would ask us individually to confirm our support of it. The implied alternative was to seek employment elsewhere. Let us be clear: we reject with one voice such tests of our loyalty to Shimer College or to President Lindsay.

President Lindsay has maintained that he wants only to clarify the College's mission, not to change it. An unsympathetic redrafting of the entire mission statement is not a clarification. Further, his intransigent insistence on the rightness of his views on education, even in the face of months of considerate attempts to qualify them and to offer alternatives, only betrays how little he understands or adheres to the College's principles for cooperative dialogue.

Such betrayals strike at the heart of our educational mission. Students complain rightly that they are admonished just to study, while their studious efforts to defend and clarify their sense of the College's mission are repeatedly dismissed. And we hear more and more from alumni troubled by the lack of harmony gripping an institution they helped build on mutual support. For our part, the Faculty has grown increasingly dismayed at the President's and even Board's seeming relunctance to affirm our necessary authority over the College's core educational program and to assure the security and freedom we must have to protect and enhance it.

We understand entirely the Board's need to support the powers necessary to the President. But to define the College's mission unilaterally and without board approval is not one of these powers. We therefore state again our unanimous backing of the Assembly's present will to uphold the current mission statement. And we trust the Board will help in enlisting President LIindsay to this bgeneral will for the greater and lasting good of the College.

The Faculty of Shimer College

[version circulated at 2/23 SSA meeting]

What the Hell Just Happened

"What the hell just happened?!"

On the afternoon of February 20th, in a discussion circle hastily formed by students outside the IIT meeting room in which the Shimer College Board of Trustees had just decided, by a narrow vote of 18 to 16, to adopt President Lindsay's whole-cloth rewrite of the mission statement, Jack Garvin ('12) - part of a peaceful protest of over 60 students and alums there to challenge this eventuality - in exasperation, asked this question.

Given the circumstances, it's a really good question. Despite overwhelming support from the Assembly, a powerful letter from a unanimous Shimer faculty supporting the Assembly's affirmation of the current mission statement, as well as a petition from both students and alumni in support of the current mission statement, a determined faction of the Board voted against community consensus, instead adopting the clearly unpopular, hastily drafted, last-minute whole-cloth rewrite of Shimer's mission statement by President Tom Lindsay.

What the hell just happened, you ask? Well, here's our answer.

1. October 2009: Mr. Lindsay offers his "guideposts on the mission" in an hour-long lecture to the internal community. Though it's billed as a "discussion," questions are not welcomed.
2. February 3, 2010: Mr. Lindsay met with the Shimer community and respectfully disagreed with faculty, staff, students and alumni about what the mission of the College is (see notes here).
3. February 7, 2010: The Shimer College Assembly considers several alternative mission statements and votes overwhelmingly to affirm the current one. Since Mr. Lindsay had only submitted "guideposts", the Assembly could not vote specifically on his proposed mission statement.
4. February 8, 2010: Noting the "soft conviction" of the [unanimous] Assembly on behalf of the current mission statement, "Bud" Vesta - a Lindsay trustee nominee from 2009 - sends an open letter to Lindsay and the Board asking Mr. Lindsay to draft a rewrite of the Shimer mission for consideration by the Board at their plenary meeting of February 20.
5. February 15, 2010: Mr. Lindsay submits his whole-cloth rewrite of the Shimer mission statement to the Board via email. The Assembly doesn't have a chance to respond to it. As per Lindsay's own strategic plan, it is not formally scheduled for a vote until the May 2010 Board meeting.
6. February 19, 2010: A day before the plenary meeting of the Board, Patrick Parker - the chair of the hiring committee which forced Lindsay's hire despite overwhelming internal community resistance in 2008 - claims that there exists a legally-binding grant document that was supposedly signed by Dean David Shiner and [former president] Bill Rice in 2006, according to which Shimer MUST rewrite its mission statement to include the terms "Great Books of the Western Canon", "Socratic method" and "Hutchins curriculum" by April 10, 2010. Though Dean Shiner does not acknowledge this claim and Parker cannot produce this document, Parker uses this as a pretense for forcing a vote on the issue at the February 20 plenary session of the Board.
7. February 20, 2010: The Board, by a narrow vote of 18 to 16, adopts Mr. Lindsay's whole-cloth rewrite of the Shimer College mission statement.

"What the hell just happened?" The short answer: Snake oil, a la Lindsay. What's gonna happen next? Stay tuned. Like Aristotle says, "This shit ain't over yet."

Current Shimer Changes, Mission Statement, New President, etc

Via Denise Lane:

Hello! I'm writing you to make sure you, as Shimer alumns, have heard about the current goings-on at the college. I'm worried about the state of the college, as are faculty, students, staff, and other alumns I've spoken to.

The college is at a crossroads, and if the current president, Tom Lindsay, has his way, some faculty and students are allegedly considering walking out.

THIS SUNDAY, November 15th at 4:00pm is an Assembly meeting at the College, which all alumns are invited to attend (we are a non voting part of the Assembly, which means we can speak). At this meeting the Ethos of the College is being defended against a true attempt to significantly alter Shimer's mission. If you are in the Chicago area and can attend - PLEASE DO. I have more specific info I can forward you, just let me know.

Tom Lindsay wants to remake the college and his tactics frighten me. He fired Elaine, the Head of Admissions, without discussing it with anybody in the community, and in my view, without showing proper cause. (Besides which she was being more successful at bringing in the numbers than Shimer has *ever* seen before.) This has current staff members fearing for their jobs.

He then replaced her with a woman who was a student at his past university, who does not have the experience to hold the job. Further, he hired her against the Committee of the Assembly who had thrown out her application twice.

Both Lindsay and his new hire are not participatory in the dialogical method of Shimer, meaning to say I've heard the current community is very frustrated with his lack of listening. This concern is also held by faculty members.

The Board of Trustees does not stop him because it has ballooned by a large addition of *his* friends. The Shimer faculty and students who are on the Board have been ignored and yelled at in the meetings.

Apparently he wants to "water down" the mission of Shimer, and this Sunday's assembly meeting has an agenda item to specifically strengthen the mission instead. Please attend this if you can. I know that current Board members are planning on attending, the voices of alumns (read, possible donors in their mind) mean a lot!

If you are interested in knowing more, I suggest you sign up for "Listen" the Shimer email list which any member can post to, there has been a lot of back and forth on these issues on there. Also the President and the Board of Trustees are on the list as well.

If you are interested in more info, let me know. Otherwise thanks for reading this long. I truly believe in Shimer and I don't want a Neo-Conservative stonewalling and taking over just because he and his friends have a lot of money. Please help.

Thanks!!
:D

For those Shimerians who need to get on to Listen to receive the emails: lists.shimer.edu choose the first "this", choose "listen", and create a logon. It will email a confirmation. Let me know if you have any problems.