Shimer College

"While memories of my youth and that of my contemporaries will always be of the Mount Carroll campus, the essence is in the method. What makes Shimer unique is dedication to the truth, to be found by free and open inquiry and discussion."

"To serve rather than be served" is the motto of Shimer College, a fiercely independent liberal-arts institution where professors and their students use dialogical tools to dismantle arguments like kids pulling the innards out of old alarm clocks."

"Lets look at the bottom of 64," she says, and it suddenly strikes me that everybody is. No one is staring into space, or writing love letters, or sleeping off a hangover. What kind of place is this, anyway?"

"Shimer wears a mask of nodding tranquility but plays devils advocate to the Big Ten and the Ivy League."

"The Shimer College I attended no longer exists and yet is eternally present in this moment (as T.S. Eliot said — he, too, I read at Shimer)."