Twenty-seven years before she earned her doctorate, Kari Shimmin graduated from Monmouth College
MONMOUTH, ILLINOIS (January 23, 2025) — A full 27 years after she walked across the Wallace Hall stage to receive her Monmouth College degree, Kari Shimmin ('97) earned another diploma.
Last May, Shimmin received her doctorate in educational leadership from Western Illinois University, completing a journey that started five years earlier.
The 25-year faculty member took the traditional path toward her Master's degree, completing it at WIU two years after graduating from Monmouth. She then joined Monmouth's physical-education faculty that fall.
The year prior, Shimmin began a 21-year stint as the Fighting Scots head volleyball coach. She amassed 337 victories in that sport and another thirty leading the softball team. Those 367 varsity victories are third only to basketball and baseball coach Terry Glasgow and baseball coach Roger Sander in Monmouth history.
Achieving balance
Throw in the fact that Shimmin and her husband, Hank, were busy raising four children, and it's easy to understand why there was a break between her Master's and doctorate.
So why did she decide to do it?
"That's a good question," she said with a laugh.
Shimmin said a conversation with Hank's late aunt, Peggy Kulczewski, sparked the process.
"We talked about the importance of education and of continuing your education — of being a lifelong learner," said Shimmin of Kulczewski, who was on Monmouth's faculty, too, at one point.
Shimmin had stopped coaching by the time she started the doctoral program at WIU in the summer of 2019, but she hadn't stopped being a mom to four kids.
"A lot of it has been about maintaining a balance of life," she said. "I have four active daughters [known as the "Shimmin women"], so I did my best accomplish this goal while supporting Hank, my girls and my students."
How to teach PE better
Summers were a busy time for her WIU classes, and so were weekends throughout the traditional school year. Those classes typically met a half-dozen weekends each semester, and she took either two or three at a time.
And what did Shimmin learn?
"I love teaching physical education curriculum and instructing future educators," she said. "I strive to teach our students the importance of a quality K-12 physical-education program."
So Shimmin immersed herself even further into that passion, exploring effective curriculum methods and how to promote to her students — and the students they'll be teaching — how to be physically active throughout their lives.
A survey she conducted of first-year college students on what they enjoyed from their high school PE classes was a major part of her doctoral research.
Shimmin became very engrossed in the data she collected, with the intent on perfecting her dissertation, titled “High School Physical Education and Its Influence on the Physical Activity of College Students.”
"The hardest part was letting it go," she said. "So I'm continuing my research and plan to share the data with my students — future physical educators. Beyond that, I hope to have the results published one day."
With that journey behind her and with many of the lessons she learned neatly collected in a bound volume, Shimmin wanted to express her gratitude for those who helped along her five-year journey. Her family tops the list, of course — including a great-grandmother who continued to serve as a substitute PE teacher until the age of eighty — but Shimmin also thanked several others for their help in the process.
One was faculty colleague Saad Bashir, who helped her with the statistical part of her research. Several colleagues in the college's Center for Science and Business frequently provided encouragement and helped her celebrate her achievement, including faculty members Joan Wertz, Tom Prince, Mike Connell, and academic secretary Nancy St Ledger. And Shimmin also received advice and backing from several faculty colleagues, including Tammy La Prad, Tom Sargent, Sean Schumm, and Tiffany Springer.
Other people she wished to acknowledge include the late Rose Sandstrom, a mentor and former physical-education student teacher supervisor at Monmouth, as well as two WIU faculty members — Stuart Yager, her dissertation chair, and Lora Wolff, who helped Shimmin get started on the process, then retired but still kept tabs on her former student.
