Alumni, Parents, Students & Friends Celebrate

From October 10-16, Shimer welcomed alumni, parents, students, and friends home to Shimer for the 2nd Annual Shimer Days.

The week kicked off with an Open House for prospective students, organized by the Admission office. Interested students and their parents toured the campus, met with current students, and sat in on a Shimer class. Faculty members Stuart Patterson and Jim Donovan participated in the event. Stuart commented on its success, even with the relatively small turn-out of students. “The Open House gave the prospective students a strong, positive impression of what Shimer is like,” he said.

During the week, students participated in a “Hidden Search for Truth” scavenger hunt organized by the Quality of Life Committee, which ultimately led the winning student to discover the truth (on a mug) at a favorite neighborhood cafe. The Office of Student Life and the IIT Office of Service co-sponsored a screening of Miss HIV, a documentary that chronicles the journeys of two HIV-positive women in Botswana who enter a “stigma-free” beauty pageant.

In what has quickly become a Shimer Days tradition, students gathered for the “Shimer History” Community Tuesday. This year, Alumni Association President Nancy Nickel ’76 and Library Director/Bookstore Manager (and alumna) Collen McCarroll ’76 joined long-time faculty members David Shiner and Eileen Buchanan to recount Shimer’s illustrious (and occasionally tumultuous) history.

One of the highlights of the week was undoubtedly the Alumni Reception hosted by the Shimer College Alumni Association on Friday, October 14 (Kate Chappell '76 & Marcia Nelson '75 pictured). Held at the Floating World Gallery in Lincoln Park, the event brought a group of recent and not-so-recent alumni together to eat, drink, and reminisce. The event included the announcement of a generous donation from Nancy Nickel toward Art Institute memberships for Humanities 1 students, and a raffle to raise additional funds. (Congratulations to David Friedman ‘69 for winning a year-long membership to the museum or cultural institute of his choice). The evening culminated in a gift given to Ed Walbridge ‘56 in honor of his years of unswerving commitment to the College.

On Saturday, students, parents, and alumni met to discuss some of the Shimer student summer internships and the thesis process for seniors. They were then treated to a community lunch. The conversation over lunch was lively--as is typical for a group of reunited Shimer folks--and remained so during the ensuing stroll to the IIT Pumpkin Launch competition (pictured below), when the joke circulated that Shimerians would be more likely to discuss a pumpkin than to catapult one.  Afterwards, President Ed Noonan, who once studied with Mies van der Rohe, offered an architectural tour of the IIT campus.

We thank all of you who helped make Shimer Days this year such a success, and hope more parents, alumni, and friends will be able to join us next fall.

For more photos visit flickr.