The college that went away to school (Chicago Tribune)

The Chicago Tribune, October 9, 2006 (Page 1 of 2)
The college that went away to school
Shimer College's move from Waukegan to IIT brings about unique blend of
students, learning
By Jeff Long
Tribune staff reporter
Students from a small liberal arts college in the far north suburbs have been mixing quietly for the past
month in their new home on the Chicago main campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, where
students delve chiefly into things such as science and engineering.
Socrates likely would have been fascinated by the culture clash.
Shimer College has been in Waukegan for a quarter century, a haven for lively intellectual debate. Its
"Great Books" curriculum goes directly to the source of learning: the works of Plato, Newton, and Darwin,
for example.
But as much as anything else, the move to IIT's campus on Chicago's South Side is a practical one,
Shimer's president told faculty, alumni and students at the college's convocation Sunday in the new IIT
digs.
President William Craig Rice said more prospective students are contacting Shimer now that it is in
Chicago, and fundraising is ahead of schedule.
With enrollment at about 80 students, he said there have been 570 inquiries from prospective students
since August. Usually, there are about 400 inquiries by this time of year, he said.
Meanwhile, students from Shimer can take technical courses from IIT and IIT students can take courses
from Shimer.
Although classes have been under way for a month, the convocation officially marked IIT's welcome of
Shimer College to its campus.
After the convocation, Rice said Shimer's enrollment has been stagnant for 15 years, and he hopes the
move will end that. He expects Shimer to remain Shimer, however.
"You sit down with the books and the conversation begins again," he said. "You could convene a Shimer
class on a mountaintop in North Carolina and the conversation begins again."
Students attending Sunday's ceremony agreed.
Noah Kippley-Ogman, 20, is taking a differential equations class and calculus 3 from the IIT curriculum.
Because he wants to be a math teacher, the move means he'll be able to stay with Shimer by taking the
IIT classes.
Otherwise, he'd have attended another college for those classes.
"I really like living in Chicago," he added. "It's a lot better than living in Waukegan."
That helped tip the balance for Nicolette Stosur-Bassett, 17, who is in her first year at Shimer.
"It made it a lot more appealing to me, because I wanted to go to school in the city," she said.
Stosur-Bassett, who is from Glen Ellyn, said city life gives her easy access to the museums and theaters
she loves.
Liz Todd, 17, is a second-year student. To some extent, she's sorry to leave the Waukegan campus. "It's
really exciting in some ways, because you get to be in Chicago," she said. "But it's hard to leave behind a
place you called home."
She already has been to the symphony, the Goodman Theatre and the Art Institute. "Living in Chicago is
great," she said.
Shimer students also will have access to IIT student facilities and services under the long-term lease
Shimer signed, Rice said, adding that he's looking forward to seeing how the two sets of students and
faculties mix.
"It's the interchange between scientists and humanists," he said.

The Move is Over

This is making me quite sad at the moment. I was thinking today of sipping coffee in the gym basement, or huddling up in the lounge in Praire. I'm sad that I won't be able to do it again.

Tiny Shimer College completes move to Chicago campus

Associated Press

CHICAGO - Shimer College, a liberal arts school with a student body of only about 100, has moved its campus for the second time in its 153-year history.

After spending the past 28 years in suburban Waukegan, Shimer this month completed a move to leased space on the South Side campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Shimer president William Craig Rice said he hopes the move will make the school more attractive to students and enable it to boost its enrollment to 300 or 400.

But not all of the students appear happy with the change. One senior, Kyra Keuben, said the new surroundings were a bit bleak.

"Before, we had classes in homes with fireplaces," Keuben said. "Now we have the second floor of a business office. It's not as cozy."

Shimer is one of the nation's few Great Books colleges, which is a curriculum that eliminates textbooks and focuses on reading original texts by writers who have shaped Western culture.

Most of Shimer's students major in philosophy, but Rice said the new arrangement will allow them to take science and engineering classes at Illinois Institute of Technology. Students at the technology institute will be able to take liberal arts at Shimer.

Shimer was founded as a women's seminary in 1853 by two upstate New York educators, Frances Wood and Cinderella Gregory, on a small campus in Mount Carroll.

Enrollment at the Mount Carroll campus peaked at about 600 in the middle 1960s. Then in 1979, the Mount Carroll campus was sold and the remaining students and faculty moved to Waukegan.

Teaching English with a Shimer degree

Greetings,

I was wondering if anybody reading this is a recent Shimer grad and a high school English teacher.

I'm asking because I've hit a wall in my application process for this one-year post-bacc teaching certification program (through my local community college.) My stumbling block is due to the new No Child Left Behind laws, which state that teachers must be "highly specialized" in the subject they wish to teach. Basically, I'd need 24 credit hours (plus to pass a test, which I'm sure I will breeze through) in English.

My advisor glanced briefly at the very very outdated sheet of paper the registrar sends along with official transcripts, which describe the equivalent subject matter of courses from 1960-1978, most of which say that Humanities classes are "literature" classes. Hum 1 is 2.5 art credits and 2.5 music, Hum 2 is 4 Lit credits and 1 Composition credit, Hum 3 is broken up amongst philosophy, theology and literature credits, Hum 4 is literature, history, philosophy, art, and IS classes aren't even listed.

Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but I had hoped that such a reading and writing heavy Great Books curriculum would translate to more than just one measly Composition credit for Hum 2. (Unfortunately, I'm supposed to have "English" or "Composition" classes, not "Literature.") Or maybe I am wrong and this is just my futile attempt to avoid spending an extra year and several thousand dollars to take English and Composition classes that I doubt will teach me anything that I don't already know.

I was just wondering if anybody else has gone through this debaucle and how you navigated through it.

Thanks in advance!!

Yael

P.S. I met a girl at the gym late late last night who saw my Shimer t-shirt and told me that's where she really wanted to go. She then followed me around the free weight room peppering me with questions about which political magazines she should subscribe to and how to become more educated. I finally relented and gave her my e-mail address and told her she could come over and look at all my books.

P.P.S. I met a Philosophy graduate student who shares my obsession with Plato, and I'm sure that our discussion of Lysis (once we are both done rereading) will be reminiscent of those lovely octagonal tables... though nothing beats discussing Marx by candelight during a power outage... but he does know Greek... Hmmm!

P.P.S. I'm gonna make high school kids read Shakespeare!

Commencement 2006

A record crowd of alums from near and far joined us under a perfect sunny sky in May at Shimer Commencement.

For those who couldn't attend, you'll likely be interested to read the words of Eileen, Don, David and a few others as they were delivered that afternoon.

Commencement Speech Website - Shimer Graduation 2006

848, etc.

WBEZ's 848 ran a story on the move last Friday. Any reactions to that? I can furnish an MP3 of the specific segment, for those who don't want to download the whole show. It wasn't a particularly in-depth piece -- they didn't talk to anyone besides Bill Rice -- but it's always interesting to have an outside perspective.

On a completely different note ... Congrats to the soon-to-be graduates! (If you're interested in working in Korea, please contact me or the SaraDevil.)

PS I apologize for having left Shimerhenge.com down for so long -- I hope to have it back up soon.

News from Shimer

What News from Shimer College

Thanks to Sara Davilla for the invitation to post some updates for those of you who follow this blog. I’ll try to be brief but informative – and certainly invite those with additional questions to ask away. The Faculty and Administrative Staff have made a commitment (to ourselves and to the greater Shimer community) to strive for transparency throughout the process. One would certainly be forgiven for thinking otherwise given the poor communications at the outset - but it was tough and we didn't handle if very well, partly because we had no experience in such matters. Aside from missteps at the original annoucement I think you’ll find we’ve been pretty successful.

As soon as the Board voted to expand Shimer’s Weekday Program to Chicago, our community began to create a carefully structured project plan. We collected granular concerns from students, faculty, staff, alums, and notes from firesides, Assembly meetings, and general brainstorming sessions. The resulting several hundred pieces of information were consolidated into a project plan designed to facilitate Shimer’s meeting deadlines, addressing concerns, and balancing the workload amongst ourselves in a fashion that would prevent as much disruption as possible to our spring semester academic schedule.

What sort of tasks would be part of such a plan? Items as complex as how to be certain our architect really understands Shimer’s community before she begins her designs to things as mundane as how to define “smoking areas” in the exterior spaces. Items as critical to maintaining the Shimer experience as how to preserve community dining, firesides, theatre, and Assembly to less weighty issues like “how will we keep the coffee flowing?” Each of these hundreds of tasks has a staff member assigned to it. While we may not be responsible for doing the work, we’re absolutely responsible for making sure it gets done. Essentially we’re attempting nothing more extraordinary than the type of cooperation and group achievement that we do so well at Shimer. We work together, deal with problems head on, share responsibility and work as a group towards a satisfactory outcome.

In terms of items completed, the lease and student services agreement was signed on Friday April 7th. These documents outline the framework of our physical presence on the Chicago campus. We’ve also provided that the same kinds of services that are already available to IIT students will be extended to Shimer students such as health care, gymnasium, library, u-pass CTA access, campus-wide computer labs, wireless networks, printing, etc. Negotiations are always energetic – Shimer won some points and conceded some points. In the end we’ve a good workable understanding of our mutual obligations and freedoms over the term of the lease.

Construction crews have been working pretty much non-stop since March (it was one of IIT’s good-faith gestures that they began building to Shimer’s specifications long before the lease was signed or any construction dollars changed hands). All windows are being removed and replaced, sprinklers installed, and the entire site prepared for decorating in mid-June. Barring any unforeseen delays it would seem we are on track for an August 1st move-in date. Final color samples for paint and carpeting should be available for community comment next week. We can make a copy of the floor-plan available on request. Some of the Shimer-specific details we’ve designed include removal of most of the West side interior walls to create a large open free-form lounge, removing walls to create “double-wide” classroom spaces, and consolidating several large rooms into a single multi-purpose enclosed space on the East side which will serve for film screenings, Assembly, lectures and some performances.

Exterior planning is less able to be customized, but we’ve been given some leeway in this regard. Stuart Patterson will work with some students on this outside space. There seems to be some misconception of the campus as a concrete urban strip – but as we hope you’ll find when you visit, Mies worked directly with famous Chicago landscape architect Alfred Caldwell (The Lily Pool in Lincoln Park, The Peace Garden at Irving Park Rd.) to create vast green areas surrounded by open-plan buildings. We’ll do our best to bring the Shimer touch!

Shimer Faculty and Staff continue to build relationships with our counterparts at IIT. These contacts have been overwhelmingly positive: not just from the standpoint of being cooperative with one another, but we sense a real excitement and enthusiasm about Shimer’s presence this fall. This was especially evident at an IIT – Shimer summit meeting held in March and hosted by IIT when almost 35 staff from both institutions had a working lunch to focus goals and clarify open issues.

Wes and Noah have created a computer kiosk in Admissions with a virtual tour of the IIT campus and the new Shimer space.

Noah and Lance are developing programs to build and maintain Shimer community in Chicago. There’s some talk of a joint social event sometime this spring and we’re still planning to organize a larger field-trip event to include a tour of the campus, the space under construction, a meal in the commons, and a cultural event of some type in Chicago before returning to Waukegan.

Don Moon has been working his way through the weekday student body with individually scheduled meetings to assess student feelings, assist in planning, and generally be a sounding board for community sentiment. He’s found great excitement, occasional trepidation, but only one student who has reported she won’t be returning next year – her reason being non-IIT related. Students and staff are all singularly focused on maintaining community and intimacy as well as academic integrity.

APC, the Faculty, and Dean Barbara Stone have worked out a new weekly class schedule grid that embeds a Tuesday community lunch which segues into a completely class-free Tuesday afternoon. This is set aside as community time for activities, performances, lectures, or (perhaps most important) just hanging around together before heading outside for Frisbee. The rearrangement of the week did require the sacrifice of “no-class-Wednesday” but most students seem to feel that we’ve gained more than we’ve lost in that regard.

Now that our lease is signed and more specifics have become clear, you should be seeing a fresh copy of Symposium in your mail in the next few weeks and increasing communication from the Development Office. Until then, please continue to show the amazing support and care for Shimer’s future that you’ve exhibited on this website and when you’ve concerns, we’ll do our best to answer them.

There have been questions here regarding final celebrations and “farewells” to Waukegan.

The date for Solidarity Day has been erroneously reported here and should be corrected to Saturday May 13th. As always, everyone is encouraged to attend the events…the only restriction is with regard to Solidarity Night at the North Avenue Dormitory, the Dean of Students asks that”any non-student must be with a specific host who is responsible for the guest's behavior”.

Shimer’s final Waukegan Commencement is Saturday May 20th. Watch the website for more information.

From Bill

From Bill---
Lifted Post: This letter, posted in February, from xflickerflyx is a little saddening:
When I first heard the news about Shimer moving to Chicago, I was both surprised and jealous. My surprise stemmed from the fact that the idea of moving seemed to come very unexpectedly. I was jealous because when I first came to Shimer, my friends and I would always talk about how amazing it would be if Shimer could be somewhere in the city. I wanted to have a Shimer-in-Chicago experience. My feelings soon shifted to a general uncaring attitude because as a Senior, no matter what happens next year, I won't be around to experience it. So I said fuck it -- I decided not to participate in any of the meetings about IIT or the vote -- the whole process seemed beyond my control anyway.As I started to hear more information about IIT, the less exciting it sounded. In my visions of a Chicago campus, I always thought it would be wonderful if Shimer had its own dedicated campus somewhere closer to the city, but this IIT situation was nothing of the sort. First of all, it's on the south end of downtown in an area that really isn't all too appealing for a plethora of reasons. Secondly it's a technical college. While I feel like the fact that it is a technical college says enough, I will elaborate on how ridiculous it is that a liberal arts college is moving into a building that is much more appropriate for scenes from the movie "2001: a space odyssey". The space and people we will be surrounding ourselves with are not inspiring for delicious conversations about art and philosophy.Okay, so none of this really even mattered to me until I went to the "fireside with Bill Rice" yesterday. I was ready to dismiss Shimer and bid it good riddance and good luck (which I actually did in my online blog). But last night's discussion made me realize that this school will not survive at IIT. By "this school", I mean the community and environment that is held in high regard by nearly all the students that attend and have attended this college on this campus (I cannot speak for the mt. carroll campus, as I have no frame of reference). Listening to Mr. Rice discuss forcing a community in a place where it is EXTREMELY obvious that little to no community will exist was disheartening at best. You cannot force a community to happen. The suggestions for "keeping the community together" included: requiring students to live in on-campus housing (the dorms at IIT are tiny and require that students who live in them buy a meal plan at a significant increase in cost) and eating together, along with having classes together.The IIT campus is quite large and obviously does not belong exclusively to Shimer College. There is no off-campus housing that is nearby (ie: many houses within walking distance like there are here in Waukegan), forcing students and faculty to live quite spread out from one another. I don't know how one can force students to eat together when they're at a place that gives them a myriad of decisions about where and when they want to eat (cafeterias, outdoor "parks", etc).The reason why the weekday students have a very tight-knit community in Waukegan is because we must, because there aren't a whole lot of other options to be had here. Nearly all of us live within walking distance from the school. We see each other at our best and at our worst. It's incestuous and complicated and beautiful.I can see how weekend students and others that do not live on campus (some faculty and staff, etc) feel like this move won't affect the community all that much. I am sure I'll get hell for saying this, but I don't think you can really be part of the true Shimer spirit unless you live here or take great effort to be around. I speak from experience in that I have been an on-campus weekday student, an off-campus weekend student, a commuter weekday student and an off-campus (in Waukegan) weekday student. I have seen nearly every aspect of community involvement at Shimer College. I can say very assuredly that the only times I have ever felt like I was truly a part of Shimer College was when I've lived in Waukegan. When I commuted back and forth, I rarely stayed around to hang out and just be with fellow students, even though I had several good friends who lived in Waukegan and often invited me to stick around. It was a hassle to travel and to not be near my "home base". Perhaps this can be critiqued as part of my personality and social issues, but I would venture to guess that most people tend to like to be nearish to their homes, especially when they need to study or they're out drinking or staying out late and getting home 40 minutes to an hour away isn't an appealing process. This will be an issue at IIT. There is no way that this sense of community that I equate with Shimer College can be recreated at a place that we will be so diluted in.And so here we are, thank you Bill Rice. It's really too bad you never got to experience Shimer College, and now you never will. I think it might even be appropriate to change the name, because this place, as it exists will never be the same. And sure, the world is always changing and it's inevitable that it will, I for one don't want to sit idly by and just watch all this disappear. I hope that the gold that "the college" hopes to fill its pockets with by this move will be worth the death of our school.And please, stop calling it an "expansion", it's just offensive.Amanda StilwellShimer Student 2002-2006 (accepted 1997, but delayed entry)

Hi All

Hi All!

I just wanted to encapsulate some of the last comments. We who are not on campus are really hoping to be able to understand what is going on with the move. So I have a few questions:

1. Can we get a link to this blog on the Shimer College website?


2. Is there a person or persons on campus who can keep us up to date by posting?


3. Can someone please post the letter Dave Koukal is inquiring about?


4. What is the date of Solidarity Night?

Bill

What News?

It has been tough to think about what might happen to Shimer in the future. I know, on a conscious level that the move it not going to be the end of Shimer, but that does not mean I’m falling all over myself about the move.

I’m curious, though, about the preparations. What is going on over there? It’s been a while since anything has been said one way or another. Has the building redesign been finished? When will students officially move? Is there some sort of last hurrah? Will there be a maypole one last time at Shimer? What will happen to reunions?

I know it’s a lot of questions, but I’m frustrated, worried, disconnected, and far away. Like all things, this place I miss and call home is changing, and I can’t be a part of it, so I wonder what is going on?

Anyone, and everyone, feel free to help those of us who are feeling either disaffected or disconnected know what is going on.

Thanks,

Sara

Welcome to IIT Bloggers!

          I have never personally addressed the issue of IIT Bloggers. In case it needs to be said: IIT students/bloggers are more than welcome to post here regarding this topic i.e. the leasing of space and the leveraging of curriculums. It would probably help to browse the posts a little so you know that we are not slamming IIT or its students. Most of the dissention has to do with the way the decision was presented and subsequently made.

     So, welcome IIT bloggers!

bill

Sara Devil

Sara Devil,
                    I was checking the links that we have for the Shimer Blogs. I am not able to find all of them and post. Do you have time to do this??? I feel like we need to solidify the online community by making it easier to bounce back and forth between the various blogs…

Bill

An Actual Letter to Chris Hawkins-Long

Dear Chris Hawkins-Long,

     What about Shimer College and the Future? Really, much more than semantic, I think. It is an admission. The most notable aspect of the dialogue is the powerful influence of money. Not monies that may or may not have moved Shimer but the influence of a global economy on the most powerful nation in the world. The admission is that this new world is about educating people that help other people get rich. That is what the society “needs”. The future of Shimer is surely about the needs of the society. Society wants employees with a less ethereal focus. Employees focused on a very old Protestant view of success and wealth and the wealthy.

     What does Shimer serve now? Is it still about a better education? Is it still about a more holistic approach to education? As I may have mentioned before, I am a CPS teacher. My school most definitely reflects the economics of the surrounding area. The neighborhood is poor, the school is poor. Waukegan is poor. Shimer’s move was about making sure that school was financially sound—not about loftier goals of say: Putting power in the hands of the people.

     If we are going to discuss Shimer’s Future I feel we must talk about the paradigm shift that is fast making good public education a thing of the past and any good education something for rich people. Let’s talk about preparing students to do battle in a society where only the wealthy can run for or hold high political office.

     I know that someone mentioned earlier in this blog that corporate America had integrity in regards to its stand on good writing skills et al. If I had had time that day I would have pointed out that my experience in corporate America revealed it to be the home of whispering religious conservatives. I heard the disparaging remarks about homosexuals, African Americans, and cursing about political correctness as an Albatross around the necks of plain talking people. Certainly, it is only my experience and even worse my perspective on my experience. But the experience was sadly disheartening. I lost faith in the ability of people to make healthy decisions in the spirit and tradition of Rousseau.

How can you condemn all women to the boundaries of a faith they may not even share?

Why can’t CEO’s be held accountable for screwing up and what sense does it make to pay millions to executives of a failing company and blame the failure on the pension and insurance benefits or 500 or so $50-70,000.00 a year employees?

At the rate of regentrification in Chicago, IIT, in a very short period of time will be serving a very affluent community. I know because I have lived through several waves of regentrification.

Shimer was more than an education to me. It was a cause. Yeah, I’d like to know. Exactly what is the great plan for Shimer in Chicago?

P.S. It was Sara devil’s idea to change the name. I thought “What’s in a name?” Then I thought about you Chris. Really what is the future of Shimer College? What can we expect the school to maintain in regards to its integrity? What about the leadership?
What the hell does the school stand for now anyway?

Fight the Power!

Letter to David Shimer via C. H-L

Dear Chris Hawkins-Long,

Please forward the following letter to David Shiner. Tell him it is a question about baseball. Here is the question in two parts:

Given the “Hoop Dreams” like focus of young ball players in the Dominican Republic, the expansion of the internet into third world countries, new concepts of the global economy as being “flat”, (meaning that the internet has made the third world a serious competitor in the world market place) what has been the influence of the exploding global economy on Major League baseball?

Will Shimer have a baseball team in Chicago?

Sonia and Sara

Hey Ladies,
Thanks for posting. Sara, I thnk you are right. The blog has to stay up. My opinion though is that it should stay of an activist nature. We need to keep an eye on what is happening with Shimer. As I have said before I want Shimer to succeed. That success was not contingent on it's location but on it's integrity. So much integrity has been lost in the worlds of art and academics that it makes me weary. This blog allows me to be active without losing myself to it.

Sonia, I can't say that I will make the Plato discussion-- although he is my favorite but I will make some of the dialogues definately...okay so now i am really considering the Plato thingy...

Damn You!

Notes from Sonia... Shimer Carries on....

hey Bill,

I have some news which I am hoping to use you as a tool to publicize. You even, I hear, have a virtual Shimer group.

The news: on Wednesday, March 15 at 7:00pm at the Uptown Border's on Lawrence, there will take place a discussion on Plato's The Republic, the topic: the role of the church in the state. This will be the first meeting of a new great books discussion group facilitated, at least in the beginning - I expect anarchy no later than the 2nd meeting - by me. Anyone who has done the reading recently is welcome to participate.

For further details (there aren't any but people do so like to think that there is always more), I can be emailed at Uptowngreatbooks@yahoo.com.

Thanks and let's have coffee sometime.

Sonia

Shimer College Blogsite

I will leave the site up for a month or two. If there are no postings then I am closing it down.

Great Books and City Lights

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/23/shimer


Jan. 23
Great Books and City Lights

What do you get when you cross a tiny, independent Great Books institution, with a big city technology institute? An ingenious idea.

Shimer College, in Waukegan, Ill., is working on an answer to that question. The liberal arts college is picking up its 100 undergraduates and moving 40 miles south to the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology, in Chicago.

Initially, the agreement is simply a leasing arrangement, and the two private institutions will maintain their own faculties and boards. Shimer will lease 17,000 square feet on the IIT campus. Some Shimer students will live in IIT dorms, and may soon enjoy some of the benefits of the larger institution.

"We've been discussing having their students use our library services, and maybe moving their [20,000 book] collection to our library," said John Collins, vice president for business and administration at IIT. Shimer students may soon have access to other amenities at IIT, like the athletic and dining facilities.

As far as Shimer is concerned the Windy City real estate is the main attraction. Shimer spokesman Christopher Hawkins-Long said the college is looking to expand and "we can reach a broader audience in Chicago." Hawkins-Long said that Shimer wasn't shopping around for a new venue, but that the plan grew out of personal conversations between Shimer and IIT administrators. Eventually, cross-registration opportunities might be available for IIT and Shimer students. Shimer's curriculum is centered on a broad set of core requirements in the humanities and sciences, and small discussion classes where students read major texts of Western civilization.

George Dehne, an enrollment consultant who has worked with both Shimer and IIT, said in an e-mail that the urban setting is a bit tough, and that "there could not be two more different groups of students then artsy, intellectual and sort of outside the mainstream as the Shimer students and the career-driven, technology oriented IIT students." But Dehne said that Shimer will never reach capacity in Waukegan, and called the move "an ingenious idea."

Dehne said that IIT, which has just over 2,000 undergraduates, is also under enrolled, so the relationship will be symbiotic. Administrators from both Shimer and IIT said that collaboration beyond space-sharing may be in the offing. Shimer president William Craig Rice said that "Shimer will strengthen the liberal arts on the [IIT's] campus, reinvigorate the Great Books tradition with deep roots in Chicago, and Shimer students will benefit from IIT's strengths in science and technology."

IIT has already seen a relationship grow with another tenant, the VanderCook College of Music. "Over time it's evolved where our students take some of their classes," Collins said. "Initially, that didn't happen, but now it does, and it's mutually beneficial."

Still, Dehne said, the Shimer-IIT understanding isn't likely to open the floodgates for similar college partnerships. "Institutional egos are very, very large," he said. "I worked with a consortium of small, relatively desperate, Christian colleges within about 30 miles of each other," Dehne said. "I recommended some kind of consolidation, similar to IIT and Shimer, but none would budge because each did not think the others were Christian enough."

Dehne added that the cultural attractions of the city will be a great complement to the Great Books curriculum, and the kind of round-the-clock activity that Dehne said his firm's research shows "the Millenials crave…. In our current student surveys more than 8 of 10 students say they go to bed at 1 a.m. or later. Obviously, small town or rural colleges have a hard time competing."

Stuart Patterson, who teaches natural sciences at Shimer, said that he's excited about the move because it will help further diversify the student body. "We'll get a great mix of student experiences," he said. "[The move] expresses a certain realism about where we'll do best." He added that there is some "trepidation among students," simply because they're used to the Waukegan setting.

Shimer won't be completely packing up and leaving for the big city. Shimer's graduate teacher education programs, which serves about a dozen students, and its science labs for home schooled middle and high school kids, which serves 40-50 students, will stay in Waukegan.

Richard H. Hyde, the mayor of Waukegan, a diverse city with about 90,000 residents, is sad to see the college go. Hyde said the city "understood their space problem … so we offered them one of our hotels that's been out of commission for 15 years." Hyde said the hotel is a beautiful old building, but that Shimer would have had to renovate it, and, obviously, it isn't in Chicago.

Hyde said he understands, but that "we hate to see them go. They were a real asset to the community."

— David Epstein

Bandit

Keeping the Dialogue Alive

I want to encourage people to continue to post here. It is not enough to oppose the move. We must ensure the future of Shimer College as unique educational experience available to all.

For myself I intend to continue asking questions and posting. A mistake I made early was not staying touch and keeping track of things. From here on out I will keep an eye toward Shimer College.

I will need help to do that. This blog has told me more about what has happened to Shimer since my leaving than any other communication.

Please post.

Unity Regardless

I think it is a bad decision to move to the city. The evidence to support my belief is almost overwhelming. I find it insulting to ask for consensus, especially when their is no overwhelming evidence to support the move. Especially, when the move is so indicative of what is happening to Not-For-Profits, small businesses and communities across the nation.
It seems that once again the ability to make a cogent argument that has nothing to do with facts outweighs common sense. We are ignoring the unorthodox manner in which this proposal was presented and ignoring the "haste makes waste" irony. That seems to be a theme in our nation today. Administrative shenanigans are ignored in the spirit of unity.
I seem to remember some arguments in my education that painstakingly warned against leaders who opposed their detractors by challenging their loyalty to the nation. Shimer is giving up its unique place in the world of academia to stand in the ranks of colleges and universities who sole purpose in teaching the works of great authors, logicians and theologists is to come up with a slick advertising campaign to lure consumers. We are shoring up the battlements of an economic machine whose greatest accomplishment in the past hundred years has been the financial disenfranchisement of millions. The business paradigm they serve operates on the premise that one should make more than they made last year. So, very similar to the rhetoric that believes a war on terrorism can be successful. How can war end war? How can greed end greed?
I know for a fact that Shimer’s board gave only a cursory ear to the proposal that the board made. I know for a fact that they gave the city of Waukegan barely more than two months to make a proposal. How very aloof! How very arrogant of us!
Sarcasm: Yes, let us move forward. Let's take higher education, of the quality that Shimer offers, into the city where there are true intellects that can appreciates and can afford the quality of what Shimer offers.
I thought the words under the tree were "to serve". Amend that to "to serve when a profit can be made." I don't want Shimer’s Faculty and staff to be poor and starving but something really stinks about the way this went down.
Correct me if I am wrong but isn't consensus what George Bush asked for when he found out that people disagreed with and mistrusted him? Am I a traitor now?

Shimer Moving

Dear Friends,

It’s been a hard couple of days for me, as I’m sure it has been for all of us. A decision by the Board and the Assembly to relocate to IIT’s campus is not something we should take lightly. I’m not certain that we’ve made the right decision, but I’m certain that I’d be equally uncertain if we had made a different decision. I was honored to be able to speak to my concerns at both the Assembly meeting and the Board meeting.

I am certain, however, that the only right decision now is to fully support the relocation and not drag our heels. It’s now time to find creative solutions.

Shimer at IIT would lack community, many of us have said. Now is the time to figure out how to make community happen at IIT.

Shimer at IIT would place an undue burden on students because of the need to sign up for a meal plan if living in housing, many of us have said. Now is the time to advocate for and work for a creative solution that satisfies the needs of all Shimer students for the Shimer-at-IIT housing experience.

Shimer at IIT would remove the possibility of self-governance, many of us worry. Now is the time to create strong democratic institutions that will prosper on IIT’s campus, to make that self-governance fit to survive relocation.

I promise that whatever my feelings about the proposed relocation were up through Tuesday, from now forward I will work to make the best of the situation in which Shimer is.

Not all of the board members voted to relocate, but we’ve all committed to work for the College in its new home. All of the members of the faculty have likewise committed to work for the College in its new home. As a student and a member of the Assembly, I urge my fellow students and members of the Assembly to join the Board and the faculty in openly declaring that wherever Shimer may be, we’ll work to support it.

We’ve had our say in the democratic decision-making process, and we must stand by it. If we believe, as I hope we do, in the democratic governance structure of the College, we can’t bail out if the Assembly and Board don’t agree with us individually.

I can’t stress this enough. However much we may want to complain bitterly, there isn’t time. All of us must band together in order to make Shimer stay the Shimer we know and love in our new home. If we don’t come together, we’ll lose Shimer.

Yours sincerely,
Noah

Shimer Moving to Chicago

Press Release

From David Shiner:

Following a meeting that lasted for four and one-half hours, the Shimer College Board of Trustees voted to expand its operations to IIT’s Main Campus in Chicago.

Technically, the agreement commits Shimer to an expansion, not a move out of Waukegan. We expect to continue to hold some programs in Waukegan, including the lab science program for home-schooled students of middle and high school age and the Hutchins Institute, featuring graduate programs for teachers, as well as perhaps others. However, it is anticipated that many of the buildings on the Waukegan campus will be put up for sale and that the Weekday Program will operate only on the IIT campus beginning in the Fall 2006 semester.

Many details regarding the expansion have yet to be determined. They will be decided within the Shimer community in the coming months. Most Assembly committees, the faculty, and other bodies will hold more meetings than usual for these purposes. Next week's Staff Retreat will also be dedicated to this.

Meeting Results??

What were the results of the Schools meeting with the city of Waukegan? Does anyone know the nature of the offer that the city made to the school?

Please post.