History of Shimer College
Shimer College was founded in 1852, when the pioneer town of Mt. Carroll, Illinois, lacking a public school, incorporated the Mt. Carroll Seminary with no land, no teachers, and no money for this purpose.
Founded as non-denominational, it was affiliated with Baptists from 1896 into the 1950s, and subsequently with The Episcopal Church between 1959 and 1973, after which it became non-denominational once again.
Shimer has evolved over time from a coeducational seminary to a women's seminary, a women's academy, a women's junior college, a women's college, and finally a coeducational Great Books college.
Throughout its existence, it has been involved a series of crises and profound changes. Because of this, the college is often symbolized by a phoenix which is reborn from its own ashes. Crises throughout Shimer's history have included three abandonments of the college by its board in 1855, 1973 and 1977; a catastrophic fire in 1906; bankruptcies in 1974 and 1977; and struggles over governance in 1966 and 2010.
Faculty and students have historically worked together to keep the college viable. The college has undergone two hotly contested moves, from Mount Carroll, Illinois to Waukegan, Illinois in 1978 and from Waukegan to Chicago in 2006. In 2017, Shimer College became the Shimer School of Great Books at North Central College.
Characteristics that have been noted to recur throughout Shimer's history, include a unique degree of student involvement in administering the school's affairs. The school maintains a tradition of welcoming any pupils as they are ready and able to learn, admitting students many schools would consider too young.
The school has maintained notably high standards of academic performance and required workload. In the 19th century, it sent students to the East Coast ready to skip the first years of college. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Shimer students had among the highest GRE scores and rates of graduate study in the country.
Mount Carroll Seminary
Shimer College was founded in Mount Carroll, Illinois, USA as the Mount Carroll Seminary, a non-denominational coeducational seminary. The charter for the seminary was granted by the Illinois General Assembly on June 18, 1852, after lobbying by the citizens of Mount Carroll.The town sought and secured two recent graduates of the New York State Normal School.
Frances Wood and her friend Cindarella Gregory, arrived from Ballston Spa, New York and classes began on May 11, 1853, with 11 students in a single room in the Presbyterian church in Mount Carroll. Enrollment rose in the course of the year; when the college formally opened in a dedicated building in 1854, there were 75 students.
The seminary was to have been funded by subscription. However, only a fraction of the original pledges were honored. In 1855, fearing that the school would fail due to the lack of subscription revenue, the incorporators sold their shares in the college to the teachers, Wood and Gregory. This was arranged under favorable terms, with the land donated and the buildings sold at cost, on the condition that Wood and Gregory continue operating the school for at least 10 years. The transfer took effect on March 30, 1855. On February 25, 1867, the school was re-chartered by the state legislature to reflect the new arrangement.
Throughout the 19th century, the campus grew steadily from the original single building. In 1857, construction on an expansion was halted due to the Panic of 1857. Wood, Gregory and their students worked together to successfully complete the construction in time for classes to start. This cost-saving pattern was followed in a subsequent expansion from 1865 to 1867. The campus was known for being free of disease due to the hygienic design of these buildings. By 1883, the campus covered, much of it planted with trees.
The music and arts programs were a significant attraction of the seminary. The seminary had the first piano in Carroll County. The seminary's music program began with only 3 students, but grew rapidly. By the 1880s, there were 5 to 7 music faculty, and the conservatory held nearly 40 instruments. The music program in this period was overseen by Mrs B.F. Dearborn Hazzen, a voice instructor who became associated with the seminary in the late 1860s. The music and arts programs remained strong even after the seminary became the Frances Shimer Academy in 1896.
On December 22, 1857, Frances Wood married local naturalist Henry Shimer, thus becoming Frances Shimer. It has frequently been claimed, including by Henry Shimer's family, that the marriage was purely a marriage of convenience. Henry Shimer subsequently became a physician and also taught science classes at the seminary. He later became wealthy through real estate speculation.
The Mount Carroll Seminary functioned similarly to a preparatory school, with a six-year course of study that could lead the pupil to more advanced study. Some graduates were even ready to skip the first years of college. The specialized departments of the school included a normal department which trained schoolteachers, a music department that employed up to seven teachers, and a labor department that gave students the opportunity to work off their tuition obligations. A full scholarship to the normal department was provided for one teacher from each township of Carroll County, and one teacher from each county in the state.
The seminary accepted any pupil who was willing to learn, and is said to have welcomed pupils as young as three. Facing space constraints in 1866 following the US Civil War, the formerly coeducational seminary limited residential study to women, although some men were still allowed as day students.
From 1853 to 1896, Frances Shimer was the chief executive of the school. Initially this was a partnership between her and Cindarella Gregory, who served as the chief academic officer while Frances oversaw the finances of the school. In 1870, the partnership ended, when Gregory left the school to marry. The Mount Carroll Seminary remained the sole property of Frances Wood Shimer until her retirement in 1896. For most of her administration, the seminary made no effort to either recruit students or solicit donations, focusing all energy on creating a school that would merit confidence.
In the 1880s, Frances Shimer became concerned about the future viability of the school, and made repeated efforts to secure an endowment. In 1886 she offered to provide the seminary to the Women's Christian Temperance Union on the condition that an endowment be raised. In 1888 she offered to transfer the seminary to a board of trustees on the condition that they provide $100,000 to start an endowment. However, the proposed trustees were unable to raise this sum. In a will authored shortly before his suicide in July 1895, Henry Shimer left his entire fortune to her to use for educational purposes. However, the will was successfully contested by the Shimer family, and the resulting reduced endowment was never sufficient to provide meaningful financial support.
Relationship with the University of Chicago: Frances Shimer Academy and Junior College
On July 1, 1896, Frances Shimer transferred control of the seminary to a 15-member board of trustees, under an affiliation with the University of Chicago. The school at the time had an estimated value of $250,000. The affiliation related primarily to educational standards, and did not include any financial support. Shimer then became known as the Frances Shimer Academy of the University of Chicago. Shimer also adopted the University of Chicago's affiliation with the Baptist denomination, and required that at least two-thirds of the Board be members of a Baptist church. The membership of the Board was divided equally among representatives of the University of Chicago, graduates of the Mount Carroll Seminary, and citizens of Mount Carroll.Having completed the affiliation arrangements, Frances Shimer, in ill health, then retired to Florida where she took up orange growing. In 1897, her place as the executive of the college was taken by Dean William Parker McKee, who served until 1930. Like most Shimer executives throughout the school's history, McKee was also an instructor, teaching history. Frances Shimer died on November 10, 1901, and her body was returned to Mount Carroll for burial.
Under the terms of the affiliation, academics were kept to University of Chicago standards, so that students left the academy and junior college prepared to continue their studies at any university in the country. Examinations were held at the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park. However, the academic relationship faded over subsequent decades, until it was restored in 1950. The academy was accredited by the North Central Association in 1909, and the junior college was accredited in 1920.
Throughout this period, the College was governed by a chief executive overseen by the Board of Trustees; McKee, the first chief executive, was known as "Dean", but the subsequent executives were known as "President". McKee was followed as Dean by Floyd Cleveland Wilcox, who served from 1930 to 1935, and Raymond B. Culver, who served from 1936 to 1938. Albin C. Bro held the presidency from 1939 to 1949. In 1942, the college dropped the "junior" from its name and became "Frances Shimer College."
In the late 1890s and early 20th century, enrollment rose steadily. To accommodate this, the board ordered new construction on the campus, of the South Hall, Dearborn Hall for music, and Hathaway Hall.
On February 9, 1906, a fire destroyed much of the campus, including South Hall and all of the buildings that had been part of the Mount Carroll Seminary. An emergency fundraising drive was launched which secured $50,000 to rebuild the campus. The campus was rebuilt with more modern and fireproof brick buildings, West Hall and Metcalf Hall.
In 1909, a College Hall was erected on the campus, and a junior college program was formally begun. In that year the enrollment was the highest on record. The school had already been providing college-type instruction since 1907. The first junior college class graduated in 1910. The name of the college was changed from "Frances Shimer Academy" to "Frances Shimer School" in 1910. At this time, the school offered two separate courses of study: a 4-year academy course equivalent to high school, and the 2-year junior college course. As the academy was phased out, the name of the school was changed again to "Frances Shimer Junior College" in 1932.
In the 1940s, the college faced difficulties with both enrollment and finances. By 1949, enrollment had fallen to 65 students and the college was $80,000 in debt. Donations from graduates were slight, as students of the junior college would typically go on to another college, marry a graduate of another college, or both.