Former names | Mount Carroll Seminary, Frances Shimer Academy, Frances Shimer Junior College, Shimer College |
|---|---|
| Type | Great Books-focused academic department |
| Established | 1853 |
Parent institution | North Central College |
| Location | 41°49′55″N 87°37′33″W / 41.83194°N 87.62583°W |
| Website | www |
Shimer Great Books School (pronounced /ˈʃaɪmər/ SHY-mər) is a Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, originally founded in 1853.
Originally founded as the Mount Carroll Seminary in Mount Carroll, Illinois in 1853, it became affiliated with the University of Chicago in 1896 and was renamed the Frances Shimer Academy after founder Frances Wood Shimer. It was renamed Shimer College in 1950, when it began offering a four-year curriculum based on the Hutchins Plan of the University of Chicago. After the University of Chicago parted with both Shimer and the Hutchins Plan in 1958, Shimer continued to use a version of that curriculum. The college relocated to Waukegan in 1978 and to Chicago in 2006. In 2017, it was acquired by North Central College which established the Shimer Great Books School to continue offering its curriculum.
Shimer was, until joining North Central College, governed internally by an assembly in which all community members had a vote.[1] In 2016, Shimer announced an agreement to be acquired by North Central College.[2] The agreement came to fruition on June 1, 2017, when Shimer's faculty and curriculum were subsumed into North Central as a department known as the Shimer Great Books School of North Central College.