After the Brawl is Over...

We may yet have a long and difficult fight ahead of us. We may lose. There was never any reason to believe that Tom Lindsay & Co. would leave quietly. On the other hand, if I were President Lindsay, I would have been thinking about alternative careers for a while now. So if he does suddenly depart, we need to be ready for the next step.

If Lindsay leaves us, there will be three needs that must be met as quickly and effectively as possible: more money, more students, and more secure governance.

More Money!
Altogether, approximately $175,000 has been pledged to support a post-Lindsay Shimer. The short-term goal is $250,000. This will help to ensure a financially smooth transition. You can make a pledge using the online form.

In the longer term, of course, even more will need to be raised. It is critical that we establish a broad base of support to replace the narrow base that has recently been provided, directly and indirectly, by the Seid and Aequus foundations. Also critical will be ensuring that the people providing this broad-based support are heard in future discussions of college governance and mission. The efforts we have put into alum outreach will need to be retooled to this end.

More Students!
Lindsay hasn't been able to meet the expectations he was hired under when it comes to enrollment. If we want there to be a post-Lindsay Shimer, we'll have to do a lot better than he has done.

To that end, thus far approximately 40 alumni have volunteered to donate time on a weekly basis to help recruit students for a post-Lindsay Shimer. You can add yourself to this number by using the online form.

It takes time to get up to speed for this sort of work. Therefore, I would encourage anyone who is not too deeply involved in the current mess to get in touch with the Admissions Office (admissions@shimer.edu) as soon as possible about volunteering.

The energy dedicated to online action will also need to be reoriented to identifying and recruiting potential Shimerians. The blogs that have been put up in reaction to the crisis, especially Shimer College Alumni Speak and its sister blogs, will need to be retooled to help get out the word about the real Shimer. Fresh content will be needed, there and elsewhere.

Better Governance!
If we are fortunate enough to be delivered from the current mess, it is critically important that we make it much more difficult for anything like this to ever happen again. To be sure, no system of governance can be completely impervious to hostile takeover. But certain things seem clear:
- It should not be possible for a majority of non-internal seats on the Board to be held by people with no prior connection to the school (as is now the case).
- It should not be easy for a hostile majority on the Board to refuse to seat representatives of the internal community (as would currently be the case).
- It should not be possible to simply dilute the student and faculty seats on the Board into irrelevance.
- The role of the Assembly and its Constitution and committees should be affirmed in the Bylaws in unmistakable, weasel-free language. Some work on this front may already be under way, thanks to the joint task force that has been set up to clarify the changes of 2008.

* * * * *

All of the above, of course, remains miserably hypothetical for the time being. None of it will ever be possible unless Shimer's absentee president adds a seventh day to his weekend. So please keep reaching out to alumni and friends. Please keep spreading the word, in whatever ways you can.

And please, if you haven't yet, sign the petition.

The Week in Review, 4/2

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we always need more voices here at Shimer College and the Future. If you'd like to post here, please send an email to the address at the top of the page. If you're already among the 50+ authors here, just start posting!

This week on this blog:

• On Tuesday we had our first installment of "The Odd Lies of Joe Bast". Plenty more where those came from, but we'll try to space them out so nobody gets indigestion...
• Also on Tuesday, a current student recounted an extremely troubling conversation between her, another student, and Thomas Lindsay in his capacity as President. Thomas Lindsay has been successful, for the time being, in "persuading" the author to withdraw that post. Lindsay has offered no actual rebuttal of the students' account, despite being asked to provide one. If Mr Lindsay is reading this, he should consider himself invited to send a response directly to the address at the top of the page.
  

• On Wednesday, alum Byron Keys shared the community's initial response to Thomas Lindsay before he was hired, in "I signed up for Shimer College, not the Thomas Lindsay Reading Club." We hope to hear more from Byron on this and other topics in the future.

• On Thursday, we enjoyed an insightful letter from longtime Shimer supporter Erik Graff.

• Today, in my capacity as an irate Shimerian, I took issue with a Tribune article which has been high in the search results for "Shimer College" in recent months. A journalist alum took well-reasoned issue with my issues.

• By the time you read this, the "Week in Review" post will have been posted.

Elsewhere on the net:

• Many more Shimerians signed the petition demanding Tom Lindsay's immediate resignation. (Here's why.) The count now stands at 426, including hundreds of alumni, many parents, and approximately half of the current student body. If you haven't signed yet, please consider doing so. The petition isn't going to save Shimer all by itself, but it has an important role to play.
• Many more Shimerians also filled out the form pledging support during and/or after the crisis. (If you have filled out the form and haven't heard back from anyone, we apologize -- things have been just a bit hectic. Feel free to contact me directly, samueljhenderson@gmail.com.)
• Jacqueline Harris hosted an excellent 2-hour online radio show about Shimer events. (Click the link to listen.) The next show is scheduled for April 13th at 4 PM.
• On Shimer College Alumni Speak, we heard from Shimer alums Jason Blaesing (2000), Maria Sosa (1972), and Louis F. Linden (1969). We'd love to hear from you, too; email your reflections to shimerspeaksout@gmail.com.
• At shimerians.com, the problem with registration emails has been solved. (Probably.) If you already signed up but did not receive an email, you have been manually confirmed and can now log in freely. The site is still under construction, and any help in finishing the job would be appreciated.

Elsewhere off the net:

• At Shimer, reliable reports indicate that facilitators facilitated, students studied, staffers staffed, and administrators administered. We're not quite sure what the president did, but presumably he spent most of his time presiding ... over some place other than campus. If only Tom would extend his 6-day weekends by one more day, things would be so much simpler for everyone.
• The students who had an extremely disturbing conversation with a trustee two weeks ago were intimidated into remaining silent. (There seems to be a bit of a pattern here...) We can scarcely fault anyone for not wanting to be on the receiving end of a frivolous but well-funded libel suit, but it must be said that the external community is not currently getting the full story about the threat to the faculty.
• Neither the president nor his cronies on the Board made any effort at a meaningful demonstration of good faith. Guys, if you really aren't planning to gut the faculty and curriculum, why don't you just make a binding commitment to that effect? Sure would go a long way toward putting everyone's mind at ease...