Shimer College is a small, private, undergraduate liberal arts college in Chicago. Founded by Frances Wood Shimer in 1853 in Mt. Carroll, Illinois, it was a women's school for most of its first century. It joined with the University of Chicago in 1896, and became one of the first junior colleges in the country in 1907. In 1950, it became a co-educational four-year college, took the name Shimer College, and adopted the university's curriculum of the Hutchins Plan of Great Books and Socratic seminars. In 1958, Shimer separated from the university and enjoyed national recognition and strong growth in the 1960s but was forced by financial problems to abandon its campus in 1978. It then moved to Waukegan, IL, remaining there until 2006, when it moved to the National Register of Historic Places-listed campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology in the Bronzeville neighborhood in the Douglas community area of Chicago. Classes are exclusively small seminars in which students discuss original source material rather than textbooks. The Early Entrant Program, in place since 1950, allows students who have not yet completed high school to start college early. Shimer has the highest rate of doctoral productivity of any liberal arts college in the country.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

330:

The city of Byzantium was consecrated as Constantinople, the new capital of the Roman Empire under Emperor Constantine the Great . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople

1813:

William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth departed westward from Sydney on an expedition to become the first Europeans confirmed to cross the Blue Mountains. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Mountains

1880:

A land dispute between the Southern Pacific Railroad and settlers in Hanford, California, turned deadly when a gun battle broke out, leaving seven dead. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mussel_Slough_Tragedy

1946:

The United Malays National Organisation, today Malaysia's largest political party, was founded, originally to oppose the constitutional framework of the Malayan Union. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Malays_National_Organisation

1997:

Deep Blue became the first computer to defeat a world chess champion, when it bested Garry Kasparov in six games. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_%28chess_computer%29

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

bereft (adj): Deprived, robbed (of something) http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bereft

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. --Richard Feynman http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman