$15 million gift from Shonda Rhimes is reshaping both campus landscape and the conversation around Black alumni influence at colleges
Shonda Rhimes’ $15 million gift to Dartmouth College is reshaping both the campus landscape and the conversation around Black alumni influence at elite institutions.
Later this year, construction will begin on Shonda Rhimes Hall, a new upperclass residence on West Wheelock Street in Hanover, New Hampshire. Funded by Rhimes’ donation, the building will be the first on Dartmouth’s campus named for a woman and a Black alumna. Rhimes, an Emmy Award–winning showrunner and producer behind global hits including Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and Bridgerton, serves as a trustee of the college and is estimated to have a net worth of roughly $240 million.
The residence hall is part of Dartmouth’s broader $500 million initiative to expand undergraduate housing, with plans to add more than 1,000 beds over the next decade. College leaders hope the expansion will allow approximately 90 percent of undergraduates to live on campus, easing pressure on the surrounding housing market and improving affordability for students and local residents alike.
In announcing the gift, Rhimes framed the donation as both personal and purposeful. She described it as a way to honor the formative role Dartmouth played in her life and to create a lasting legacy that reflects who belongs on campus. At a moment when the value of higher education is increasingly questioned, she said, reinvesting in colleges and universities feels especially urgent.
Rhimes’ gift arrives amid a broader shift in how Black alumni are using philanthropy to shape institutional priorities, histories, and physical spaces. In recent years, major donations from Black graduates have increasingly carried symbolic as well as material weight, often tied to questions of representation, access, and historical reckoning.
At Princeton University, investor and philanthropist Mellody Hobson, a member of the Class of 1991, provided the funding for Hobson College, a residential college that replaced the former Woodrow Wilson College.
The renaming addressed Wilson’s legacy as both a former U.S. president and a Princeton leader who actively excluded Black students during his tenure. Hobson has described the decision as deeply meaningful, noting the symbolism of a Black woman’s name replacing that of someone who would not have supported her admission decades earlier. The new residential college is expected to open in 2027.
At Cornell University, billionaire investor Robert F. Smith has similarly tied major gifts to preserving and advancing Black student life. In 2023, he purchased and donated a 9,000-square-foot building to house members of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and its leadership institute, along with an additional $9 million for renovations.
Smith’s philanthropy has also included eliminating student loan debt for the Class of 2019 at Morehouse College and funding scholarships, fellowships, and named academic programs at Cornell, particularly within engineering.
At Dartmouth, however, Black alumni influence extends well beyond high-profile capital projects. Maria Cole, president of the Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association, points to sustained, targeted giving models that directly support student life, academic enrichment, and emergency needs.
One such initiative is the African and African American Studies Enrichment Fund, established by the Class of 1982, which supports lectures, visiting scholars, professional networking events, and programming centered on Black history, culture, and lived experience.
Other alumni-supported efforts include emergency funds that provide rapid assistance to students facing unexpected financial hardship, covering everything from travel costs to academic materials. The E.E. Just Program, named for Dartmouth’s first Black valedictorian, supports research and programming focused on equity and excellence in the sciences, connecting students and faculty with national and international scholars.
Cole says recent political and legal shifts — including the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision ending race-based affirmative action and subsequent federal actions targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs — have reinforced the importance of long-term, structured giving. Rather than deterring alumni engagement, she argues, these moments have prompted Black alumni to think more strategically about preserving progress through restricted funds and formal agreements that clearly define how resources are used.
On campus, student leaders are acutely aware that today’s institutional choices will shape tomorrow’s alumni relationships. Dominique Quiñonez, a sophomore and president of Dartmouth’s Women of Color Collective, said students are watching closely to see whether colleges sustain commitments to student well-being beyond moments of national crisis.
Transparency, responsiveness, and meaningful engagement around campus climate, curriculum, and representation, she said, are central to whether students feel invested enough to give back as alumni.
Dartmouth has recently avoided some of the federal scrutiny faced by peer institutions, including investigations related to antisemitism, which administrators attribute to proactive community engagement efforts. Student leaders say similar intentionality is needed to build trust with Black students as institutions nationwide reassess or roll back DEI initiatives.
For Rhimes, philanthropy is not just about funding buildings but about reshaping who is visible within institutional narratives. She has said that while Dartmouth was not originally made in her image, it can be remade to include it — and that philanthropy can help open doors for others to imagine what is possible.
Quiñonez sees that visibility as motivating.
She jokes about one day donating enough to put her own name on a campus building, but the sentiment, she says, is serious.
Leaving a mark is about affirming belonging — making it clear that Black students were here, contributed meaningfully, and helped shape the institution’s future.