Television producer Shonda Rhimes has pledged $15 million to her alma mater, Dartmouth College, for a new undergraduate residence hall.
The college says it will break ground next year on the Hanover, New Hampshire, campus on the five-story Shonda Rhimes Hall. It will be the first Dartmouth building named for a woman the first building named for a Black alumna. It is scheduled to open in 2028.
“It’s an opportunity to show how formative my college experience was for me," Rhimes says. "It’s also really beautiful to be able to place some legacy on the building—to give back what was given to me and to leave something behind."
Rhimes, whose TV productions include Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder and Grey's Anatomy, has been inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame and Dartmouth’s Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame.
Dartmouth’s push to build new undergraduate housing is part of a $500 million commitment to create at least 1,000 new beds for students, faculty and staff in the next 10 years. The college wants to have enough student housing so that more than 90% of undergraduates can live on campus.
When it opens, Shonda Rhimes Hall will house 115 juniors and seniors in apartment-style suites. It will adjoin another residence hall and will be situated just west of the previously announced Class of 1989 Hall. The structures combined will house about 400 students.
The buildings, which will cost $95 million to construct, are being designed to achieve LEED Gold certification, and their infrastructure will connect to the upgraded energy system that Dartmouth is developing as part of its ongoing decarbonization initiative.
With these new buildings, as well as the renovation of existing residences such as Fayerweather Hall, Dartmouth expects to have achieved nearly three-quarters of its 1,000-bed goal by the end of 2028.
