A Small College on the Precipice

At a meeting of its Board of Trustees yesterday, Shimer College took a step back from the edge of an abyss on which it has stood since April 19. How it got to that edge and what steps might lie ahead offer some insight into what’s happening in higher education today.

Saving Shimer
Shimer College is “the Great Books school of Chicago.” It is tiny – only around 100 students – and it barely avoided closing for financial reasons on at least two occasions. Initially based in Mount Carroll, Illinois, it moved to Waukegan (north of Chicago) in 1979 and then to the campus of Illinois Institute of Technology (south of Chicago) in 2006.
I got involved with Shimer shortly before the move to IIT as part of a rescue operation to improve the school’s finances and academic programs. By the time I came on the board in 2008, it had recruited a new president, Thomas Lindsay, who was given the mandate to raise money and professionalize what was mostly an amateur operation.
Lindsay made considerable progress in his first 18 months, including getting the school’s first “clean” audit in decades. recruiting trustees willing to financially support the school (incredibly, most of the “old” trustees gave little or nothing to their alma mater), replacing an incompetent admissions director, creating a professional development team, and revising the mission statement. (The old mission statement didn’t even mention the Great Books.)

Opposition to Change
At every step of the way, Lindsay was opposed by faculty and staff. At first, this opposition appeared to me to be based on Lindsay’s personality and impatience with the slow and consensus-based “Shimerian way.” But as anger grew into hostility and then outright defiance of Lindsay’s leadership, its real basis became clear: Faculty and students were deeply afraid of external review of their work or achievement. They were hiding something.
Thirty years in Waukegan had generated an unhealthy culture where drug and sexual abuse were apparently tolerated, “facilitators” (Shimer has no professors) socialized with and evaluated students. Each other, students facilitators being assessed, and college presidents raised only enough money to keep the doors of a deteriorating campus open. The faculty was and still is, undistinguished by conventional measures (publications, academic memberships, or recognitions). Enrollment is permanently free admission, and there has been no external review of faculty, curriculum, or student achievement in decades.
From the perspective of faculty and some students, Lindsay posed a threat to this status quo, and so had to be removed.

A Huge Step Backwards
Student and faculty protests eventually persuaded the executive committee of Shimer’s board of trustees to call for a special meeting on April 19 to vote on Lindsay’s removal.
The resolution passed by a single-vote margin, but only because Lindsay had to recuse himself while nearly a half-dozen other trustees with conflicts of interest did not. Three were faculty members who feared Lindsay was planning to not renew their employment contracts (yes, faculty members and even students serve on Shimer’s board!). One was the brother of the dean who Lindsay had discovered had obtained his advanced degree from a notorious diploma mill, and one was an officer of a competing Great Books college that stood to benefit if Shimer were handicapped.
Lindsay was terminated immediately, rather than being allowed to serve until the end of the school year. Classes were suspended the next day so students and faculty could celebrate. The trustees who supported Lindsay were not invited to a commencement ceremony on May 8, at which 12 students were granted degrees.
College representatives indicated their intent to not honor Lindsay’s employment contract, raising the likelihood of expensive litigation. The new interim president – an emeritus trustee from the Waukegan days – dutifully renewed all faculty contracts. Three trustees and one staff member who had supported Lindsay resigned in protest of these actions.
If the story ended here, it would go down as another failed attempt to reform higher education. But yesterday, the other shoe dropped.
Yesterday’s Board Meeting
As the meeting started, a trustee accompanied by two attorneys served legal notices on all the trustees present. He was suing the college and individual trustees for failing to recuse themselves from the vote to remove Lindsay. Pandemonium ensued for the next 30 minutes.
An obviously stunned chairman restored order and, after brief opening remarks, called for the traditional approval by acclamation of the degrees granted on May 8. I objected and asked for a roll-call vote, explaining that I intended to vote against approval of the degrees and urged others to vote this way as well. More pandemonium.
The campaign against Tom Lindsay, I argued, could only be explained as an attempt by students and faculty to hide deficiencies in the quality of education being delivered by Shimer. I could not, in good conscience, vouch for the quality of education these students had received. Absent external evaluation, other trustees should vote against the motion too.
Seven trustees voted to not approve the degrees. Given that I had not lobbied other trustees before the meeting, and given the very negative consequences to the graduating students and the college’s reputation, if the resolution had passed, it is remarkable that so many trustees voted with me. Only 16 external trustees (not students or faculty) voted to approve the degrees. Had three trustees not previously resigned from the board, and if a few trustees who were supporters of Lindsay but not in attendance voted, I estimate the vote would have been 16 in favor and 12 opposed. Had only two more trustees voted their conscience, instead of blind loyalty to faculty and students, the resolution would have failed, leaving an indelible stain on the college degrees of the graduating students.
A report from the advancement (fundraising) committee of the board followed. The chairman of the committee, who apparently voted against Lindsay at the April meeting, confessed to knowing nothing about the status of pending proposals. When she said she was hopeful that several grants Lindsay had been working to secure would still come in, several trustees laughed out loud.
Next up was the renewal of the terms for three board members – one had supported Lindsay, and two had voted for his removal. All three trustees were generous alums, and the chairman and his allies on the board were confident all three would be reelected. But they were wrong. A roll-call vote for the three-candidate slate led the ayes to come up four votes short of the two-thirds majority of sitting trustees required for reelection. Voting for Lindsay’s dismissal cost two opponents of reform their positions on the board, a decision the pro-reform faction was willing to make even though it cost them one of their own.
The final item of business was the election of officers. In past years this had been a matter of routine approval by acclamation. This time, a long and highly emotional debate took place over whether the chairman had lied to and misled one or more trustees in the days leading up to the April 19 special meeting. The chairman won a majority of the votes, but all the trustees who supported Lindsay either abstained or voted against him. The rest of the slate was approved by a voice vote.

Looking Ahead
What lies ahead for Shimer? I haven’t seen the lawsuit yet, so I don’t know what remedies it demands. To avoid litigation, the board may vote to reinstate Lindsay, and he might be allowed to continue the reforms that the college so desperately needs to attract donors, improve its faculty and curriculum, and attract higher-caliber students. But that assumes that more trustees than in the immediate past will put the future of the college ahead of their own interests.
Without Lindsay as president, I suspect the organization can’t survive financially past the end of the year. Major donors have stopped funding. More key staff are planning to resign. The interim president is already trying to renegotiate the school’s lease with IIT.
There is a third possibility: that the college can con its alums and a few wealthy donors into keeping the college-going without significant reforms. I hope some of those potential donors will read this and not be fooled. If Lindsay isn’t returned as president, every gift raised in the past month and in the coming months will almost surely have to go to pay his severance and legal fees. Shimer unreformed doesn’t merit their support, and free aid now will only set back the reform effort.
Will Shimer head into the abyss, or is it about to be rescued from itself a second time? Tune in later this year!