Not my Shimer? Plus ca change, plus ca reste

Shimer College and the future … is also Shimer College and the past. I would like to address a sentiment I’ve heard often enough since Shimer moved in 1979 from its Mt. Carroll campus, an opinion that can now be shared by alums from Shimer’s Waukegan incarnation, since Shimer is now based in Chicago: that’s not my Shimer.

For those of you who have said and/or thought that, please consider: oh, yes, it is.

I have a singular perspective: Mt Carroll alum (1975) who was Shimer faculty when the college moved to Waukegan in 1979 and who now visits the “Great Books College in Chicago” because my daughter is a student. It’s true: the Mies van der Rohe urban campus at IIT, where Shimer now lives, is not rural-bucolic. An elevated train runs through it, noisily. And no, it’s not the small enclave of aging buildings (which had character and also nice rugs) that was Shimer in Waukegan. But: plus ca change, plus ca reste, as they said in Brigitte LaCombe’s French III class in Mt. Carroll.

I went to a class last year on James Joyce’s Ulysses (an unreadable but important member of the Western Canon), which I read in an independent study with Eileen Buchanan in 1974. I was therefore ready for the class and most delighted to (a) remember anything from the book after 30 plus years and (b) accept insights based on close and imaginative readings of the text. It was fun, true, and good. I also recently attended a meeting of Shimer’s governing Assembly, which is foreign to Mt. Carroll alums. To Mt. Carrollingians I say: it sounded like student government from back in the day, and it also put me in mind of The People Shall Judge from our social sciences curriculum. There were the people, judging, deliberating. Plus ca change, plus ca reste.

Shimer is now in trouble; fellow alumni, if it did something for you, please give back now. Become informed; spread the word; sign the petition http://www.petitiononline.com/FWS/petition.html requesting the resignation of a president who, with an ideological rather than educational agenda, is a bad match for the school; squeak the wheel.

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...
  

A Shimerian Responds: "Shimer College in Power Struggle"

I recognize that the constraints of writing for a daily newspaper leave little room for scrupulous fact-checking. I believe that the errors and distortions in Ron Grossman's Chicago Tribune article entitled "Shimer College in Power Struggle" (1/27/2010) were almost certainly committed in good faith. But given the continued prominence of that article, I feel it is necessary to set the record straight.

On that positive note, then, let's start with a truth well stated.

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"In all of American academics, it’s a good bet there’s no place quite like Chicago’s Shimer College."

Yep.

Now then, let's have a look at that subtitle:

Board, president seek independence from partnership with students

This seems a peculiar way of stating things. It is, after all, the students and faculty who are Shimer College. The president and his razor-thin majority on the Board are free to go their own way -- and at this point, the sooner the better. Furthermore, the students have never attempted to interfere in the Board or president's internal affairs. It is, rather, the President and his lackeys on the Board who have eagerly thrust themselves into the internal affairs of the college. And even if one can somehow class that interference as "independence," it is a bit difficult to see how such an "independent" Board and president intend to go about running the college without any cooperation from the community. Unless, of course, they plan on reducing the college to a meaningless shell.

"[...] its mascot is the 'flaming smelt' [...]"

Shimer College does not have an official mascot. The flaming smelt, an unofficial symbol beloved of many Waukeganites, is no more or less a mascot than the phoenix or the squirrel.

"In some ways, the Shimer standoff is reminiscent of the left-versus-right campus melodramas of the 1960s."

It's hard to argue with a statement as vague as this, but it is clearly intended to mislead the reader into thinking of the current Shimer crisis as a continuation of the "culture wars".

"[...] some of the generally leftist students and faculty see a move to tip the power balance in favor of the administration. "

"Generally leftist"? Even with regard to the students, we've yet to see any documented evidence of this. And as for the faculty ... does anyone really think that teaching the Great Books year in and year out would appeal to your average "leftist"? Good grief.

"Many of the new trustees are political conservatives like the school’s new president, Thomas Lindsay."

All of the new non-alum trustees are political conservatives. Most also share undisclosed financial ties to Barre Seid. Seid's role as the "anonymous donor" was kept secret from the community for many years.

"The ’60s have echoed loudly in the feud [...]"

Sigh. What does this even mean?

"But both sides in the Shimer dispute are united in passionate enthusiasm for the 'Great Books' course of study -- an elitist curriculum holding that seminal ideas should be read in their authors’ own words rather than textbooks offering watered-down versions."

Shimer welcomes all applicants, including many who did not finish high school or dropped out of other institutions. Offering a high-quality education to all comers scarcely seems like "elitism."

"Shimer’s syllabus is the same as half a century ago, when it had its own campus in the small town of Mount Carroll in northwest Illinois."

Leaving aside the rather important distinction between syllabus and curriculum, this is simply untrue. While the core of the Core has held constant, as it should and must, the details of the reading lists and other requirements have changed enormously since 1960. The reading lists for some courses, such as Humanities 3 and 4, have been revised considerably in the past decade alone. In fact, it is a requirement of Shimer's accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, that Shimer "[assess] the usefulness of its curricula to students who will live and work in a global, diverse, and technological society." If Shimer's curriculum were as static and unquestioned as Grossman suggests, that would surely cause significant problems with accreditation.

"The big issue dividing Shimer is what form of campus governance would best guarantee the survival of the classic curriculum. The communal democracy of which Marx dreamed, and of which Shimer students read in Social Sciences 1? Or the enlightened despotism that Hobbes advocated, which is discussed in Social Sciences 2?"

Yipes! It's hard to know where to start with this. So let's break it down.

"The big issue dividing Shimer is what form of campus governance would best guarantee the survival of the classic curriculum."

The big issue is whether the curriculum and faculty are to be free of political interference from President Lindsay and his cronies. If a binding guarantee of non-interference were provided, I'm sure we would all be happy to work through the remaining issues in a dialogical way.

"The communal democracy of which Marx dreamed?"

Presumably this is intended to be a reference to the Shimer College Assembly, but I have to say that the connection between the Assembly and Marx escapes me. The Shimer College Assembly is far more reminiscent of a New England town meeting -- but is actually significantly more removed from the particulars of governance than the average town meeting, inasmuch as the Assembly is restricted to deliberating on general issues of the ethos and mission of the College. The Assembly, which in 1980 replaced an earlier and significantly more radical institution known as the "House", was most directly inspired by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, according to an account by veteran Shimer professors Jack Wikse and David Shiner.

The delicate balance of power between administration, faculty, Assembly, and committees was aptly described, by 26-year Shimer College President Rev. Don P. Moon speaking at the February Assembly, as a "constitutional monarchy."

"Or the enlightened despotism that Hobbes advocated?"

The gist of Hobbes' Leviathan is that rulers can do what they want, to whom they want, when they want and how they want, and that this is right and proper. Whatever its philosophical merits, this is scarcely a recipe for responsible governance.

Enlightenment is perhaps in the eye of the beholder, but I cannot seem to find the phrase "enlightened despotism" in Hobbes' writings at all.

Philosophically, Shimer is unabashed leftist: Former ’60s radical William Ayers was a recent speaker.

Sigh. How many times must we address this zombie half-truth? Apart from the fact that William Ayers has spoken in a great number of places, and his right to speak at Shimer was defended by Lindsay himself, Shimer has always welcomed speakers from across the political spectrum.

And what is this about being "unabashed leftist"? Is it leftist to study Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas? Are New England town meetings a "leftist" form of government? Should the Hayekian economist and Episcopalian reverend on the faculty be tossed out as not being "leftist" enough? This is fatuous.

A concerned student blog proclaimed Shimer “in mortal danger of being reduced to a meaningless shell.”

I, the author of that post, graduated from Shimer 12 years ago. This blog was founded by '99 alum Saradevil in 2005, when most current students were not so much as a gleam in an admissions worker's eye. To be sure, Shimer College and the Future welcomes students as both contributors and readers, but throughout its 6-year history, the vast majority of posts and comments on this blog have been from alumni.

He considers the Assembly a “historical accident,” and other trustees say it is a burden now when trying to persuade potential donors to write big-bucks checks to what is seen as a student-run college.

Perhaps these trustees should explain that the particulars of administrative matters are handled only by carefully-selected committees, as would be the case in any well-run institution. Indeed, why would any sensible donor want to contribute to an institution that had no internal oversight system? Clearly the problem is not with the Assembly or the committee system, but with how these are represented to donors.

At the same time, all sides are pulling for the college to surmount this latest crisis.

We would all rest easier if there were any assurance that this were true. It has not escaped anyone's attention that Patrick Parker, the ringleader of Lindsay's wrecking crew on the Board, also sat on the Shimer College Board of Trustees in 1974 when it voted to close Shimer down the first time. We would all prefer to overlook this unfortunate bit of history, except that in reliably reported conversations, Parker has expressed his belief that it would be no problem if the entire student body and faculty were to leave, and his fellow trustee Joe Bast has echoed this opinion.*

In short, the good faith of Thomas Lindsay's wrecking crew is not merely in doubt; it is almost certainly nonexistent. This was perhaps less apparent when Grossman's article first saw the light of day in late January, but it is now painfully clear to even a casual observer.

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* Even assuming that Barre Seid comes through with a few hundred full-tuition scholarships, it's not clear how Lindsay, Parker & Co. plan to bypass the upcoming accreditation review. Perhaps they imagine they can bribe and dissemble their way through that process much as they wormed their way into power at Shimer.

Letter from Supporter Erik Graff

Dear Sirs:

My interest in Shimer College extends back to high school when one of my best friends, Trina VanTellingen, attended the original campus. Indeed, I considered going to Shimer myself, but ended up at Grinnell after receiving an attractive offer under their early decision plan.

My interest was renewed when I served as an academic dean at Loyola University Chicago. There I handled articulation agreements and the training and supervision of academic advisors in the university's part-time division of 3,000 students. This work led me to a pretty extensive knowledge of our competition.

Outstanding among regional liberal arts colleges was Shimer, then at its Waukegan campus. At the time you had one of the best catalogs on the market, a catalog which described a curriculum I personally approved of and an extraordinarily participatory and egalitarian polity. I kept a supply of these catalogs in my offices and, when it seemed appropriate, I directed the attention of prospective students to Shimer. Over the years I seem to have sent at least a dozen students to your school who actually matriculated there.

One of these students was my own stepbrother, Erik Badger, who, as you know, went on to graduate and, until recently, serve the college through a number of offices. Indeed, now he is a candidate for a trusteeship. Erik's involvement and deep concern for the college, as well as friendships and professional relationships with other members of the community, have resulted in my own abiding and rather well-informed care for the institution.

This concern was heightened by two major events. The first was the appointment of President Rice under whom the college began to radically change. Most remarkably, he spearheaded the move to Chicago. Most significantly, however, he began the process of destroying the uniqueness of the college by introducing pay inequities and increasing class distinctions between faculty, staff and administrators. Where once I would have gladly taken a pay cut to work at Shimer (and actually applied), Rice's presidency gave pause to such aspirations.

The second event was the firing of your successful admissions director and her replacement by a relatively inexperienced (except as a lobbyist for Right to Life) creature of current President Lindsay over the objections of the committee normally central to the hiring process. This seemed part of a pattern of presidential authoritarianism and disregard for the traditions and institutions of the college. I decided to check it out.

Doing so over the course of hundreds of hours, I have uncovered a covert, ideologically driven plan to take over Shimer College, a plan inaugurated by President Rice and continued by President Lindsay, a project well sketched out by the recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Personally, some of the ideology appeals to me. I'm in much agreement with some libertarian ideals, suspicious of big governments and have a valued classical education myself (indeed, I write for an academic journal in the field of ancient history and the classics). What I object to includes:
1. The covert nature of the take-over and the subversive nature of the executive administration of the college.
2. The packing of your board by persons whose only qualifications seem to be their political ideology and previous associations with Messrs Rice and Lindsay (or Seid et alia), persons with no background whatsoever with the college and its traditions--some of them, indeed, with little academic or educational experience at all. (What, for instance, qualifies Dennis Katz beyond the fact that he is financially dependent upon and associated with Barre Seid?)
3. The blatantly offensive hypocrisy of Messrs Rice and Lindsay and their creatures on the board. On the one hand, they espouse liberty and the democratic ideals and history of our republic. On the other hand, they work against just those principles as they practically apply to the Shimer community.
4. The recent appointment of an academically unqualified adjunct to push Objectivism, an adjunct who is broadcasting all over the web her intentions--and the college's supposed agreement--to create a school within in the school dedicated to the great books of Ayn Rand.
5. Trustee Bast's (an associate of Barre Seid and mouthpiece of the tobacco and oil industries) public boasting of this whole effort to take over the school, turn over its faculty and to change its curriculum to reflect his idealogy.
6. The increasing lack of balance on the board. A few neoconservatives and libertarians wouldn't be so objectionable were some liberals (in the current sense, not the mid-eighteenth century sense Mr. Lindsay endorses), social democrats and even apoliticals appointed as well--presuming, of course, their respect for the college and its commitment to rational dialog.
7. The increasing financial dependence of the college on ideologically driven, extremely right-wing foundations such as the Barbara and Barre Seid Foundation and Parker's hijacked Aequus Institute.
8. The increasing disregard for the community of shareholders who substantially and abidingly make up the college: the faculty and the present-and-future alumni.
9. The fact that these changes destroy the uniqueness of the college, a uniqueness both as regards polity and as regards curriculum. Whereas Shimer had been moving in the direction of a more catholic appropriation of human cultural traditions as a whole, now it appears to be headed back to the parochial confinement of the notion of the great books to those of the western--and U.S. political--culture almost exclusively.

The last point deserves emphasis. Shimer is not the only great books school in the United States. It certainly would not be the only extremely conservative school in the country. It has, however, long been unique among liberal arts institutions, primarily because of its polity. As such, it deserved support and even had a special market appeal. The abandonment of these traditions removes what may be the major justification for its continued existence.

Sincerely,

Erik Graff

"I signed up for Shimer College not the Thomas Lindsay Reading Club."

Recent alum Byron Keys recounts the initial reaction of the Shimer College community to Thomas Lindsay.

I was a student member of the Board of Trustees in 2007-08. I was also the secretary of Administrative Committee and a member of the Agenda Committee during the same school year. In retrospect, we know now that the change in the responsibilities of the Administrative Committee and the foisting of Tom Lindsay on the college appear to be steps in a carefully orchestrated plan to take over the college. I know that some of you refuse to believe this and think that the Lindsayites have the best interest of the school at heart. I would argue to you that this is not the case.

By now, you have heard from many students, alums and employees of the college as to why Tom Lindsay must resign immediately to begin to return the college back to normal. I would offer you a number of voices from the past, of students, staff and faculty, that were sent to the board after Tom Lindsay’s May 28, 2008 visit to campus, prior to the vote on the presidency. It is amazing how, with this much documented opposition Tom Lindsay was still able to garner three quarters of the trustees in order to be confirmed. I will let these voices speak now, I will not identify the writer for a couple of reasons. I have not asked the writer’s permission and I fear Tom Lindsay would retaliate against some of the people who have commented, especially those in admin or academic positions at the college. So, listen to the voices of opposition that were raised at the end of May 2008. In retrospect, some of the comments seem very prophetic.

One commenter, whose remarks were the voicing of the secret fears of many Shimerians at the time said, “I have concerns about the candidate and his thoughts about the direction of the school and curriculum. I am concerned about his possible pushing in a direction that takes Shimer away from its roots.” Tom Lindsay’s visit at the end of May was a disaster, meeting and talking to him caused one Shimerian to post the following; “He believes in the centrality of certain outdated and dangerous narratives. And I do not mean the great books themselves (hahaha). Rather he holds ideologically loaded beliefs regarding what ‘questions we should be asking.’ This is important because he believes he is being objective when he says that race, class and gender are not important academic topics. He is a cultural imperialist and a staunch opponent of ‘multiculturalism.’ It would not be as upsetting to me had he not made it explicit that these were the fundamentals of (h)is crusade. He wants to implement these dogmatic jingoistic beliefs and make us into ‘proper American citizens.’ That last quote offended me. He also called all of continental philosophy (excluding Heidegger) derivative and not as worthy of our curriculum. His favorites ‘The Founding Fathers,’ whatever that means, however are excluded from criticism. He believes we should all identify with, what I call but he would never claim is, the dominant ideology of this country and that in fact the dominant ideology itself is a good litmus test for what is important to read. I think this sort of agenda-driven approach is harmful and will probably alienate a lot of students who are diametrically opposed to all of it. I signed up for Shimer College not the Thomas Lindsay Reading Club.”

Remember that Tom Lindsay submitted a CV for the original job opening, but was not chosen for a campus visit by the committee. A committee headed by Patrick Parker. However, after his chat with Barre Seid, in which Seid handed him a check for $75,000, he came to the May 8 board meeting with the purpose of extending the search. Actually, not extending the search, but bringing in Tom Lindsay and force feeding him down everyone’s throat. This should sound familiar to people who were on the Administrative Committee when Amy Pitts was rammed down their throats. One community member commented of Tom Lindsay’s visit, “Although I liked his ideas, I disagreed with his methods. I would prefer overall candidate #3 (I believe Mark Tierno) for Shimer. Not only did Mark connect more easily with Shimer students than Tom (at least from what I saw), he was also willing to listen and work things out before putting out his own ideas. I respect that. (Sorry for the dual evaluation.. but I didn't get a chance to fill out Mark's form!)” The favorite was Mark Tierno, who still serves as president of Cazenovia College in New York. Tierno’s visit was enlightening, he seemed to really be excited at the prospect of turning the colleges around and is an experienced and proven fundraiser. Tom Lindsay either avoided or obfuscated questions relating to his fundraising experience. One community member commented, “Very limited administrative experience - academic for sure, but little beyond that. He did not come across as a real leader to me - so I really wonder how this would play itself out. Little evidence of a sense of humor. Not clear if he is committed to diversity - in terms of the curriculum, student body etc. in any way, shape, or manner.”

One of the ways that Tom Lindsay rubbed me wrong was his body language and not giving direct answers to direct questions. This was noticed by other people who met him that day as well, as evidenced by the following comments, “Lindsay does not seem open to views that are different from his own. He tends to label any intellectual approach that differs from his own as ‘ideology’ and dismisses it as not worthy of liberal education. Shimer has served itself well by staying out of the cultures wars; Lindsay is a stauch cultural warrior and I fear he will drag our institution into this tiresome debate. He does not provide straight answers to questions but repeats the same ideas about a liberal education to most direct questions. We all agreed before the search process that what Shimer needs is someone who can be an effective fundraiser; Lindsay evaded questions about this aspect of the job. The one direct answer he gave was that when he believes in a cause, such as liberal education, he doesn't mind asking for money. We need a president who is less ideolgical and more interested in raising money for the College.” When we needed a man who was like our interim president, Ron Champagne, what we got was an ideologically compromised candidate who was in the pocket of and had marching orders from Barre Seid and Patrick Parker. Lindsay’s writings were printed and circulated at the college during May 08. One Shimerian said of them, “I discovered his writings online just as many others in our community did. Some of them scared me.”

Anyone who thinks that Tom Lindsay came on board with universal acclaim is mistaken. There was opposition to him before he ever set foot on campus when his sexist, racist and misogynistic writing was discovered. I offer these voices from the past to ensure you that he faced a lot of opposition early on. I believe this opposition will continue until Tom Lindsay is fired or resigns. Perhaps the presidency of COTUS would be suited for him.