On Dec. 8, 2018, DMU launched the public phase of “Purple & Proud – the Campaign for Des Moines University,” a $25 million fundraising effort and the largest such endeavor in the University’s history. It is set to conclude in December 2020.
DMU donors had other ideas, however.
“With 390 days in the Purple & Proud Campaign, I am so pleased to announce tonight that we have exceeded our $25 million goal,” DMU President and CEO Angela Walker Franklin, Ph.D., announced on Saturday, Dec. 7. She was speaking at a reception honoring members of the President’s Society, which recognizes donors who give $1,000 and more annually, and members of the Founders Society, which recognizes donors for cumulative lifetime gifts of $100,000 and more. “As of today, we have raised a total of $26,331,559 – and we did it because of you.”
The Purple & Proud Campaign will continue as an opportunity for donors to support its three priorities:
- Optimize the University’s facilities, including in the DMU Clinic
- Support students with increased scholarship funding, broader rural health initiatives and expanded cultural competency programming
- Invest in faculty by creating endowed faculty positions and awards
“We will always have aspiring students, our future health care leaders, who merit our investment. We will always have outstanding faculty who are passionate about teaching, research and service,” President Franklin said at the Dec. 7 event. “And we will always have a learning environment we want to maintain and enhance. We will be able to support these aspects of Des Moines University with all of us coming together, raising our vision and rising to seize opportunities.”
The campaign has sparked several positive changes at the University, including the following:
- Purple & Proud donors have created 21 new scholarship funds. By the end of the 2019 fiscal year, DMU had awarded 2,004 scholarships totaling $8,717,409 to students during the campaign.
- The endowed Glanton Fund has exceeded $3.3 million. Created in 2004, the fund supports scholarships for minority students under-represented in health care and programs that enhance the cultural competency of all DMU students.
- Areas on campus that have been renovated and newly equipped in the past two years include the DMU Osteopathic Manual Medicine Clinic, Physical Therapy Clinic, Foot and Ankle, the Olsen Center, administrative offices and meeting spaces on the Academic Center’s first and fifth floors and in the College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery, and areas in the Student Education Center.
- Construction of a new Behavioral Health Clinic is under way in the DMU Clinic.
- Paul Emmans Jr., D.O.’71, a family medicine physician in Selah, WA, and Karen and Steven Herwig, D.O.’76, a retired otolaryngologist in West Des Moines, made campaign gifts that created the University’s first two faculty awards.
- Two study rooms on campus were named to honor W. Hal Hatchett, D.P.M.’00, FACFAS, and Nicki Nigro, D.P.M.’89, members of the DMU Board of Trustees, for their campaign gifts.
- DMU employees also have shown they are Purple & Proud. During the DMU Employee Campaign, 73 percent of faculty and staff contributed 385 gifts raising $1,636,297.24.
At the Dec. 7 reception, the University honored the 2019 Alumni of the Year as well as new members of the Founders Society. The Alumni of the Year are Gayle Breutzman, PA-C’86, College of Health Sciences; Erik Eglite, D.P.M.’91, J.D., M.B.A., M.Sc., College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery; and Kenneth Anderson Jr., D.O.’78, M.S., CPE, College of Osteopathic Medicine. Joining the Founders Society in 2019 were the following:
- DMU President and CEO Angela Walker Franklin, Ph.D., and Thaddeus Franklin, M.H.A.
- McAninch Corporation
- Maryam Moghaddam, D.O.’84, FACOG, FACS, and Masoud Moghaddam, Ph.D.
- Richard Pitts, D.O.’73, Ph.D., ABEM, ABPM, and Colleen O’Connor, CRNA, M.S.N.
- Polk County Board of Supervisors
- Quad City Osteopathic Foundation
- Stephen Richards, D.O.’74, R.Ph., and Janice Richards, R.Ph.
- Norman Rose, D.O.’63, FACOS, FICS, and Dee Ann Rose
The Purple & Proud Campaign and DMU’s announcement this spring that it will move its campus to West Des Moines are positioning the University for a cutting-edge future.
“We are setting the stage for strategic growth and prosperity of the University, and we are taking advantage of the evolutionary trends occurring worldwide in health sciences education and health care delivery,” President Franklin said. “We are proud to educate tomorrow’s health sciences leaders and to provide exceptional care to the community, the state of Iowa and the nation. But we are equally proud of our greater vision for how we will prepare those leaders and serve patients and society.”