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Mar. 17th, 2015 07:42 amSo, yesterday I had a question about the bullet point where someone tried to buy a small liberal arts college, and I realized I never shared that narrative with my readers. It's actually a matter of public record, and since the people involved aren’t also involved with our group at this time it’s safe for me to talk about :)
This is probably the clearest, most concise telling of The Time Barre Seid Tried To Buy Shimer College, which is located just down the road from me in Chicago. There’s more about how a second-year Shimer student discovered the shady dealings Seid was engaging in here. If you google “shimer college barre seid” you’ll find more in the same vein. But essentially, a very rich man gave them a lot of money, and then began secretly buying his friends onto the board of trustees; after building his power base he ousted several popular staff members, replaced them with hand puppets, and set about redecorating a small liberal arts college as a little bastion of libertarian thought.
This did not sit well with the kinds of kids who go to small intense liberal arts colleges, and there was an uproar from students, staff, and alumni. Eventually the loyal Shimerites on the board of trustees managed to oust the puppet president and most of the puppet board members, but it took quite a lot of carrying-on and they’re really still recovering.
The story is a wild fucking rabbit hole to fall down; it’s exceptionally cinematic in scope. What made it charming and memorable for me is that one of the unsung heroes of the story, who stepped in to help boot Seid’s stooges out of the board of trustees, is a neighbor of mine. But it’s especially interesting because Shimer is a very small and unusual school — it had roughly 150 students when all this happened, and these days has closer to 70, five years on.
It recently made the news as the worst college in the country, and then made the news again when Shimer’s students and alumni vocally protested the title, pointing out that the metrics were stacked against them without context. There’s a great article here about how Shimer’s values and challenges are different from most schools, including a fairly scathing indictment of the industrial nature of many modern degree-granting institutions. They have a lot of reason to fight, especially given the chill that ran through the small-university community when Sweet Briar College announced recently that it was closing.
I’ve never been to Shimer and I don’t know anyone who went there or works there (except my neighbor), but I think it’s a beautiful little school and it deserves better than it’s had.
This is probably the clearest, most concise telling of The Time Barre Seid Tried To Buy Shimer College, which is located just down the road from me in Chicago. There’s more about how a second-year Shimer student discovered the shady dealings Seid was engaging in here. If you google “shimer college barre seid” you’ll find more in the same vein. But essentially, a very rich man gave them a lot of money, and then began secretly buying his friends onto the board of trustees; after building his power base he ousted several popular staff members, replaced them with hand puppets, and set about redecorating a small liberal arts college as a little bastion of libertarian thought.
This did not sit well with the kinds of kids who go to small intense liberal arts colleges, and there was an uproar from students, staff, and alumni. Eventually the loyal Shimerites on the board of trustees managed to oust the puppet president and most of the puppet board members, but it took quite a lot of carrying-on and they’re really still recovering.
The story is a wild fucking rabbit hole to fall down; it’s exceptionally cinematic in scope. What made it charming and memorable for me is that one of the unsung heroes of the story, who stepped in to help boot Seid’s stooges out of the board of trustees, is a neighbor of mine. But it’s especially interesting because Shimer is a very small and unusual school — it had roughly 150 students when all this happened, and these days has closer to 70, five years on.
It recently made the news as the worst college in the country, and then made the news again when Shimer’s students and alumni vocally protested the title, pointing out that the metrics were stacked against them without context. There’s a great article here about how Shimer’s values and challenges are different from most schools, including a fairly scathing indictment of the industrial nature of many modern degree-granting institutions. They have a lot of reason to fight, especially given the chill that ran through the small-university community when Sweet Briar College announced recently that it was closing.
I’ve never been to Shimer and I don’t know anyone who went there or works there (except my neighbor), but I think it’s a beautiful little school and it deserves better than it’s had.
