Abstract:
This qualitative study explored the effects of attending Shimer College, a small
Midwestern Great Books school. The research design was a case study in which I
interviewed 16 people who attended Shimer between 1960 and 1976. During the
interviews, I tried to learn what aspects of their experiences as Shimer students affected
them during their time at Shimer and through their subsequent lives. Most studies on the
effects of college on students cover specific domains such as social activism or religiosity
and do not address periods beyond the first decade after completing their education. This
study used open questions and encouraged the participants to speak on any topics they
chose. Working with participants at this stage of their lives also provided a retrospective
look at what they considered important decades after the experience.
After coding the interview transcripts, a descriptive framework guided my
analysis and produced five categories. The five categories included: why the participants
attended Shimer, the campus physical environment, the curriculum, academics beyond
the curriculum, and post-Shimer outcomes. I then used an iterative process in which I
consolidated or restructured some emerging themes to focus them. The eight resulting
themes are: Push–Pull (early entrants attended Shimer as an escape while others were
attracted to the school’s program), ideal vision (the location, campus, and size), learning
how to learn, the curricular interconnectedness, relationships with faculty and with other
students, academics outside the classroom, increased self-confidence among the alumni,
and the flexible skill sets they used in the workplace. The findings point to aspects of
college that mattered to the participants and insights as to the long-term effects of those
experiences. These findings inform implications, which include recommendations linked
to class size and integration across the curriculum. The analysis concludes with
recommendations for future research.
