Portal:Chicago/Selected article/118

Shimer College or just Shimer (/ˈʃaɪmər/ SHY-mər) is a small, private, liberal arts college in Chicago. Founded in 1853 as the Mt. Carroll Seminary in Mt. Carroll, Illinois, by Frances Wood Shimer, it was a women's school for most of its early years. It joined with the University of Chicago (U. of C.) in 1896, and became one of the first U.S. junior colleges in 1907. It became a co-educational four-year college in 1950, took the name Shimer College, and adopted the Hutchins Plan of Great Books and Socratic seminars. The U. of C. relationship ended in 1958. Shimer enjoyed national recognition and strong growth in the 1960s but was forced by financial problems to abandon its campus in 1979. The college moved to a makeshift campus in Waukegan, Illinois until 2006, when it moved to the National Register of Historic Places-listed Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed main campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology in the Douglas community area of Chicago. Classes are exclusively small seminars in which students discuss original source material in lieu of textbooks. Shimer has a study abroad program in Oxford, England and a Weekend Program for adults. An Early Entrant program allows students who have not yet completed high school to matriculate. It has the highest rates of doctoral productivity of any U.S. liberal arts college. Half of its students go on to graduate study; twenty percent complete doctorate degrees. 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. Shimer enrolled 100 students in 2009.