Waukegan Campus is one of the campuses operated by Shimer College. Our records show the address as Waukegan, IL, United States.
Use the address below when you need directions, mailing information or a clear sense of where Waukegan Campus is located. Larger institutions often spread teaching, research and administration across multiple sites, so confirm this is the campus relevant to your visit, interview or job application.
During its tenure at the Waukegan Campus from 1978 to 2006, Shimer College continued its signature Great Books program, adapting the curriculum to an urban lakeside environment while maintaining small class sizes and seminar discussions. The focus remained on Western intellectual tradition, encouraging students to grapple with primary sources in humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and integrative studies. This period saw refinements to include more diverse perspectives within the canon.
- Seminar in Classical Foundations: Analyzed Sophocles' tragedies, Virgil's Aeneid, and Augustine's Confessions, probing ethics, fate, and faith.
- Humanities Sequence: Progressed from Chaucer and Milton to Wollstonecraft and Douglass, examining gender, race, and enlightenment ideals.
- Social Thought I: Dissected Hobbes, Mill, and Tocqueville on governance, rights, and democracy.
- Scientific Inquiry I: Reviewed Copernicus, Kepler, and Lavoisier's contributions, fostering understanding of paradigm shifts in science.
- Arts and Interpretation: Explored Hegel, Nietzsche, and Dewey on beauty, culture, and pragmatism.
- Humanities Advanced: Covered modernist works like Joyce's Ulysses and Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, alongside Eliot's poetry, addressing fragmentation in modern life.
- Social Sciences Advanced: Tackled Keynes, Arendt, and Foucault on economics, totalitarianism, and power structures.
- Natural Sciences Advanced: Incorporated quantum mechanics via Bohr and Heisenberg, and ecology through Leopold, linking science to environmental ethics.
The curriculum required comprehensive oral and written evaluations, with students leading discussions to build confidence and analytical skills. Special topics seminars occasionally addressed non-Western texts like the Bhagavad Gita or Confucian Analects for comparative purposes. Enrollment hovered around 100 students, benefiting from proximity to Chicago's resources for guest lectures and internships. This era emphasized community governance, with students participating in curriculum committees.
Shimer's Waukegan phase reinforced its commitment to dialogic learning, producing alumni who excelled in academia, nonprofits, and creative fields. The program's intensity—averaging 15-18 hours of weekly seminars—cultivated resilient thinkers ready for complex global challenges.
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