Dartmouth Medical School has been renamed the Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in honor of Theodor Geisel '25, better known as children's book author Dr. Seuss, and his wife Audrey Geisel, according to a College press release.
The Geisel family's contributions to the College and estate planning place the family as the "most significant philanthropist to Dartmouth in its history," according to the release.
"Ted Geisel lived out the Dartmouth ethos of thinking differently and creatively to illuminate the world's challenges and the opportunities for understanding and surmounting them," College President Jim Yong Kim said in the release. "His vivid storytelling with its whimsical imagery, fanciful phrasing and deeper meaning lives on and raises children's literacy around the world to new heights by entertaining, amusing and educating. Audrey and Ted Geisel have cared deeply for this institution, and we are enormously proud to announce this lasting partnership."
Dartmouth Medical School recently jumped to 38th place from 67th place in the primary care category of the 2013 US News & World Report graduate school rankings released in March, the largest single improvement of any school. DMS also rose to 31st place in the research category, an increase from last year's 32nd-place ranking.
The rise in the primary care and research categories marks a step toward the goals of the 20x20 strategic plan, designed to place DMS among the nation's top 20 medical schools by 2020. Using the plan's recommendations, which were instituted in June, DMS faculty and administrators hope to improve the school's research program, curriculum and relationship with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
The press release stated that the renaming of DMS will "amplify support for medical students as they progress on the path to becoming physicians and scientists and accelerate the research aspirations of faculty."
Audrey Geisel, who was married to Theodor Geisel from 1968 until his death in 1991, expressed her support for the renaming of medical school in the release.
