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Shimer_College_--_A_Small_Liberal_Arts_College_in_Chicago

Shimer College -- A Small Liberal Arts College in Chicago

Shimer metcalf

Metcalf Hall on the original Shimer College campus in Mount Carroll, Illinois.

438 front partial

The 438 building on the Waukegan campus of Shimer College.

Shimer College admissions entrance midrange

Entrance to Shimer at 3424 S. State St., Chicago.

Shimer College Discussion Class

A discussion class at Shimer College


About the Shimer College Wiki[]

This wiki is intended to serve as a central point for the collection and coordination of data, information and knowledge regarding Shimer College, the Great Books college of Chicago. If you would like to contribute, please dive in!

For official information about Shimer, see Shimer's website. For an authoritative overview, see the featured article about Shimer on Wikipedia.

If you have a problem or complaint regarding the content of this wiki, please contact the administrator(s) either on-wiki or by email.

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Shimer College: An Executive Summary[]

Shimer College was a very small and unusual liberal arts college in Chicago with a reputation as one of the best-kept secrets in American higher education. This wiki seeks to tell the story of this remarkable college and its people.

Shimer's first campus was in Mount Carroll, Illinois, The college later moved to Waukegan, Illinois and then to Chicago, Illinois.

Shimer College classes were exclusively small seminars in which students discussed original source material rather than textbooks. Notable alumni include poets, authors, political theorists, experimental artists, and computing pioneers. As of spring 2011, Shimer enrolled 128 students.

The core curriculum, a sequence of courses in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and integrated studies, made up two thirds of the course work required for a degree. Shimer offered an early entrant program commencing 1950, a Oxford study abroad program in 1963, and a weekend college program for working adults in 1981.

Shimer finally resided on the IIT main campus, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. There, students maintained Shimer College traditions and also participated in IIT student life.

Founded by Frances Wood Shimer in 1853 in the frontier town of Mount Carroll, Illinois, it was a women's school for most of its first century. The school joined with the University of Chicago (U. of C.) in 1896, and became one of the first junior colleges in the country in 1907. In 1950, it became a co-educational four-year college, took the name Shimer College, and adopted the Hutchins Plan of Great Books and Socratic seminars then in practice at the University of Chicago. The relationship with the University of Chicago in 1958. Shimer College enjoyed national recognition and strong growth in the 1960s, but financial problems arising in the aftermath of the Grotesque Internecine Struggle forced it to abandon its campus in 1978. Shimer College then moved to an improvised campus in the Chicago suburb of Waukegan, remaining there until 2006, when it moved to the Illinois Institute of Technology campus in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood. In 2017, Shimer College became the Shimer Great Books School of North Central College.

Shimer practices democratic self-governance to an extent that is rare among institutions of higher education. Since 1977, the college has been governed internally by faculty, staff, and students working through a structure of committees and an egalitarian deliberative body called the Assembly.


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This page is part of the Shimer College Wiki, an independent documentation project. Shimer College, the Great Books college of Chicago, is not responsible for its content.



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