Elaine Vincent returns to Shimer College Admissions

Elaine Vincent has returned as Director of Admission at Shimer, effective August 14, 2012. The Admissions Office had been directorless since the departure of Cassie Sherman a few months ago.

Vincent previously headed the Admissions Office from 2006 to 2009. Her 2009 removal by then-president Thomas Lindsay was one of the key warning signs that led to the exposure of the attempted takeover scheme later in that year, and to Lindsay's eventual ouster. Her return is thus to be welcomed for many reasons.

Vincent's previous work laid the foundation for much of the impressive work that the Admissions Office has done in recent years, from the Shimer College viewbook to the use of enrollment management software.

From the official announcement:

Rebecca Sundin, Board Member and Chair of the Admission Committee, says, "I am so pleased that the college has decided to welcome Elaine Vincent back to the Shimer community. She has been a powerful ally to the college for many years. Her knowledge of the school and her experience with other small colleges will be a tremendous addition to the Admissions Office. I look forward to the opportunity to work with her again in the coming months."

The work of our admission team is central to our success. This appointment is a crucial one, and we urge the community to welcome Elaine as she continues the work of building a sustainable—and growing—admission strategy.

We also want to take this opportunity to thank B David Galt, Adrian Nelson, and the student staff for their hard work, Janet Henthorn in her capacity as Director of Financial Aid, and all of you who helped with recruitment during this search.

When you visit campus, please stop by the Office of Admission on the first floor of 3424 S. State Street to welcome Elaine back to Shimer.

Transfer Day at Shimer College, July 27th

On the 27th, later this week, Shimer will host a Transfer Day for students considering transferring from other institutions: schedule (PDF).

Shimer College invites all students who are thinking of transferring to Shimer in the coming year to visit with Shimer for a day! The event will be held Friday, July 27. We will answer all your burning questions about transfer to Shimer, financial aid, and more. If you are able to submit your transcripts to us a few days in advance, we may be able to do an initial transfer credit evaluation for you as well. Please RSVP to Adrian Nelson, Admission Counselor (a.nelson@shimer.edu, or 312-235-3549) if you plan on coming.

Transfer student Sarah Scalise has recently blogged about her experience on blog.shimer: "Transferring to Shimer College."

Many students transfer to Shimer from Harold Washington College (see also Dean Barbara Stone's recent letter in the Chronicle of Higher Education about this program). Previous accounts of that experience have been given by current student Ed Vlcek and 2012 graduate Kieran Kelley.

Shimerian Grey Litaker represents 49th Ward on WBEZ

WBEZ is running a "50 Wards in 50 Weekdays" series, and as the representative of the 49th Ward (Rogers Park and environs), they chose current Shimer College student Grey Litaker: "49th Ward’s Grey Litaker enjoys her ‘small beachfront town’ but not the commute". (Full audio and partial text at the link.)

Shimer is not the primary focus of the piece, but it nonetheless provides a snapshot of the contemporary Shimer experience.

On Shimer in general:

“Everyone should go there, because it’s great and wonderful,” Litaker says, before reciting a Shimer rhyme. “'Sex, drugs and Socrates. We kick ass at GREs.’ It’s totally grad school prep. That’s all it is.”

On why you can't fake your way through a Shimer education:

“It’s better to admit that you didn’t read before discussion starts and then just not talk, then to try to act like you did your reading,” Litaker says. “Because you’ll sit there and you’ll be like, ‘Well, I think Alexis de Tocqueville really thinks that democracy is amazing.’ And it’s like, ‘I think if you’d actually read the homework then you would see on page 35 that actually what he says is that this is bulls----.’”

Listen to the whole thing. Kudos to WBEZ's Sam Hudzik for a great interview.

(Previous WBEZ coverage of Shimer and Shimerians includes this Worldview interview with Steven Werlin, and this story about the 2006 move to Chicago.)

Gawker reminds us that not all anti-Shimer idiocy comes from the right

After a few years of Shimer being assailed from angry right-wing zealots on NRO and points beyond, who profess to believe that Shimer is some sort of leftist indoctrination camp, there's something refreshing about being criticized from the other side of our country's impoverished political spectrum. At least that's the best spin I can put on this week's idiocy from Gawker writer Moe Tkacik.

Tkacik's chosen target is not Shimer in general, however, but Dorian Electra, of Shimer's class of 2014 -- known in Tkacik's fevered imagination as "the Libertarian Lolita." (You may know Dorian from the front cover of the current issue of the Symposium, or from the recent Shimer video.) (In fact, in what may be the most unforgivable sin of this ugly hit piece, Tkacik does not mention Shimer at all, although she does at least include a link to one of Dorian's numerous posts on blog.shimer.)

Here is a representative paragraph from Tkacik's piece:

Now, where the conservative movement will probably never want for obnoxious junior Bible-thumping blowhards like Jonathan Krohn, Gomberg/Electra is the product of a much more delicate and nuanced decades-long project to make right wing ideology hipster-friendly. Her love affair with free markets began at the $16,000-a-year School of the Woods Montessori of Houston, Texas, producer of 66% of the recipients of 2009 Students for Liberty Foundations of Freedom Fellowships. (Montessori education has been infested with libertarians since Ayn Rand decided it was "the most promising educational method now available"-the Charlie's Angels of learning, if you will.)

Showing admirable restraint, current student Matt Kawahara responded in the comments:

This article makes it seem like she was constructed in a laboratory by libertarians to be some sort of fiscal-conservative propaganda machine. [....] I am a socialist. I find libertarianism to be an intolerable doctrine. I think the Koch bro's are evil corporatist assholes that are actively ruining this country. I have a lot of conversations with Dorian about economics, liberty, and politics. Let me tell you, you have her wrong. And honestly, you're just making yourself look pathetic. (...more...)

A fairly thorough -- if regrettably ideological and self-satisfied -- dissection of the article has been posted by Steve Horwitz of St. Lawrence University on Students for Liberty:

Moe Tkacik’s July 6 Gawker.com column on the young musician Dorian Electra is a perfect example, as she manages to simultaneously distort her ideas, accuse everyone involved in the movement of being either stupid or out to indoctrinate, and most offensively, turns a young woman who writes the lyrics and music, produces, directs, and stars in her own music videos into a mere pawn and sexual toy of mysterious dark (presumably male) forces. (...more...)

Much of the Gawker piece hinges on Dorian's viral hit "I'm In Love with Friedrich Hayek" ... the careful viewer will, I think, detect several layers of nuance that appear to have eluded Ms. Tkacik:



If nothing else, Tkacik's piece serves as a useful reminder that the "humorless doctrinaire liberal" is not exclusively a figment of the right-wing imagination.

I wonder what Tkacik thinks about quantum physics? Is it evil too?

From blog.shimer: 2012 Shimer College internships

If you don't follow blog.shimer.edu, you've missed a remarkable crop of posts from students in Shimer's summer internship programs.  More posts are reportedly on the way, but for now,  agriculture appears to be the order of the day, with a bit of librarianship and video production around the edges.

KC Stresak furnished "An Introduction to my Shimer Internship at Growing Power":

While I was looking at colleges in high school, a large part of Shimer's intrigue for me was its home in Chicago. I believed that being situated in a large, thriving city would offer an education that would enhance classroom discussions, and I'm not bashful in boasting the correctness of that belief! There are unique and creative activities and organizations happening on every corner of this city that give reality to the ideas and theories we discuss around the octagonal table. Something that has really struck me during my stay here Chicago are the urban agricultural projects. With Chicago being such a "foodie town," it’s hard not to pay attention to the higher quality of local food, as well as the fair ethical practices that embedded in locally grown food. As my interests rose, I discovered an incredible organization located right in my own neighborhood called Growing Power. 

(...more...)

She has already returned with an update, as well:

This week at Growing Power has been a crazy one, but as I was forewarned, every week is crazy on the farm. A hectic schedule can be stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. Whenever I start to feel the pressure, I always remind myself of middle school math. As I first learned a new formula, I always struggled through the exercises. I didn’t think I would ever understand the process. But as one day folded into another, another formula was presented and to my ever-renewing surprise, I understood the past day’s work as it built upon the present.

(...more...)

(Incidentally, this is not the only Shimer connection to Growing Power, as founder Will Allen has also been interviewed by Shimer alum and freelance writer Yael Grauer.)

Naomi Neal kept the agricultural theme going with an introduction to her work at Tryon Farm:

I’ll be completing my studies with a yearlong stint in the Shimer-in-Oxford program, beginning this fall. At Oxford, I’ll continue my exploration of the German language, as well as the investigation of humankind’s impact on the environment which I began in Bioethics.

It’s this interest—in living sustainably—which led me to the internship at which I’ll be working this summer. I’ll be working at Tryon Farm, which is (not a farm but) a rigorously planned housing development and intentional community in Michigan City, Indiana. Tryon is the brainchild of architect Ed Noonan, who served the past two years as Shimer’s interim president.

 (...more...)

Turning from agriculture to apiculture, Ed Vlcek reported on "My First Day as an Urban Beekeeper":

It may seem a bit unusual for a Shimerian to choose to learn the fine art of beekeeping, but I have for years had a fascination with agriculture and the bugs that make it happen. I chose to intern as an urban beekeeper as a way to explore how we can alter the content of our daily lives, practically, in immediate (and often delicious) ways. Bees are in many ways at the forefront of the shift toward more sustainable, urban-based food. In learning how they live and work, I hope to learn how to live and work in new ways as well. The Catholic Worker Peter Maurin said that "the scholars must become workers so the workers may be scholars." Maybe that's my guiding principle this summer.

 (...more...)

Brad Krautwurst furnished a bibliophilic counterpoint to all of this agrarianism with "A Summer Among the Books":

Before coming to Shimer, my career plans bounced around frequently: at some point I have wanted to be everything from a computer technician to a tattoo artist to a journalist.  However, one of the things I have gotten out of Shimer has been somewhat of a cementing of my career ambitions, or at least of what degree I will be obtaining in grad school.  I have more or less decided I will be getting a Masters of Library Science degree, but I am still switching between wishing to be an archivist, or some breed of librarian.  The internship I've secured is aimed to help me decide between the two by giving me  real-world experience in both.    

Primarily, I will be working in Richmond, Virginia at the main branch of the public library.  I plan to devote about 25 to 40 hours per week, and I will    be arriving in Richmond around halfway through June and working for about two months.

(...more...)

And Shimer's own viral video artist, Dorian Electra, has checked in from Texas:

This summer I'll be doing two internships, one with Emergent Order, a media development and production company in Austin, Texas and the other with writer, Virginia Postrel in Los Angeles. I discovered Emergent Order through EconStories, the work of director John Papola and economist Russ Roberts, specifically through their viral music video-rap-battle between economists Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes (watch "Fear the Boom and Bust"). When this video was released in early 2010 I fell in love with it and became inspired to make my own music video in a similar vein (watch "I'm in Love with Friedrich Hayek"). I sent my video to John and he really enjoyed it. Since then, we've kept in contact about new ideas and we had been talking about the possibility of me doing an internship with Emergent Order since last summer when they moved to Austin and I was working on my second economics music video "Roll with The Flow." 

 (...more...)