page_title: History of Shimer College
section_title: Shimer College in Mount Carroll
hierarchical_section_title: History of Shimer College / Shimer College in Mount Carroll
caption_attribution_description: English: Shimer College students painting the name "Frances" out of the school sign, the official name of the college having just been changed from "Frances Shimer College" to "Shimer College."
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Shimer underwent a major reorganization in 1950 when Aaron Brumbaugh assumed the presidency. He had previously been Dean of the College at the University of Chicago.
  In the reorganization, Shimer took on its current name, "Shimer College", for the first time. Shimer again became coeducational, and adopted the Chicago "Hutchins Plan", thus becoming a Great Books school.  In the course of this transition, the requirement for a majority of Baptists on the Board was removed, although a nominal Baptist affiliation was retained for some years. Shimer remained officially classified as a junior college until it was accredited as a four-year college by the North Central Association in 1959.
  At the same time as the reorganization, Shimer was selected together with 11 other colleges nationwide to receive a Ford Foundation grant to support an early entrance program under which high school students could enter college before graduating.  The program was a success, and although the grant expired in 1955, the program was kept in place.  Shimer's early entrance program continues in operation as of 2010.  In contrast, most other schools receiving the grant soon canceled their early entrance programs.
  The presidency was assumed in 1954 by a former University of Chicago professor of medicine Francis Joseph Mullin, who began an aggressive fundraising campaign that approximately tripled incoming donations to $150,000 per year.  In 1956, Shimer ceased to be affiliated with the University of Chicago.   Mullin sought to build "a community of scholars where intellectual inquiry is the highest value".
  The school faced imminent closure due to a financial and enrollment crisis leading up to the 1956–1957 school year, with enrollment still more than 50 students below the level of 200 that was considered sustainable.  To address the crisis, Mullin recruited powerful corporate donors including General Motors executive Nelson Dezendorf. Dezendorf subsequently became chairman of the board.
  In  the early 1960s, Shimer gained national attention from a Time magazine article about the school  highlighting its academic reputation.  The article cited a survey by the Harvard Educational Review that ranked Shimer as among eleven small liberal arts colleges in the United  States with an "ideal intellectual climate".
caption: Students painting out the name "Frances" on the school sign in September 1950.
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