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.