On December 8, 2018, DMU President and CEO Angela L. Walker Franklin, Ph.D., called upon the 300-plus people gathered on campus to “be bold in our plans and passions.” She had a specific idea for how people could respond to that call – by supporting Purple & Proud: the Campaign for Des Moines University, the largest fundraising effort in the University’s history with a goal to raise $25 million by December 2020.
“We are impassioned to take Des Moines University to an entirely new level of academic excellence, service and leadership,” she told the audience. “Tonight I ask you all to join us as together we raise our vision of what our University can be.”
Since that announcement of the campaign’s public phase, donors indeed have responded to her call. Overall, 3,784 individuals and organizations have contributed, including 2,872 alumni and 76 percent of DMU employees. Total giving to the campaign as of September 25, 2019, stood at $23,506,202.16, more than 94 percent of the goal.
“Our focus must be where we’re going as a medical and health sciences institution,” says Michael Witte, D.O.’77, a pulmonologist and CEO of CIC Associates in Des Moines and chair of the DMU Board of Trustees. “This is our time to start something big.”
The 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 says.
“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.”
“THE START OF SOMETHING BIG” – AND BEYOND: Purple & Proud inspires positive changes at DMU
- In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2019, donors contributed $6,689,956 to the University.
- Twenty-one new scholarship funds have been created by Purple & Proud donors. By the end of the 2019 fiscal year, DMU had awarded 2,004 scholarships totaling $8,717,409 to students during the campaign.
- During the 2019 fiscal year, the endowed Glanton Fund exceeded $3.1 million. Students have received 55 Glanton Scholarships totaling more than $2.2 million since the fund was created in 2004. It 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 Osteopathic Manual Medicine Clinic; the Physical Therapy Clinic; academic offices of the College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery and the Foot and Ankle Clinic; the Olsen Center; administrative offices and meeting spaces on the first and fifth floors of the Academic Center; and areas in the Student Education Center. Creation of a new Behavioral Health Clinic is under way in the clinic building, too.
- During the campaign, 36 individuals have become new members of the Founders Society, which honors donors for cumulative lifetime gifts of $100,000 or more.
- 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.
- During the “One Day for DMU,” from noon to noon April 15-16, 2019, 249 alumni, employees and friends contributed a total of $261,303 to the University
Good reasons to give: POINTS OF DMU PRIDE
- Members of the College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery (CPMS) Class of 2019 had a 100 percent pass rate on both the clinical knowledge and clinical skills components of Part II of the podiatric national board exams. All 52 members of the class were selected into residency programs during match week, March 11-15.
- Of the 220 members of the osteopathic medicine program’s Class of 2019, 219 landed residencies, for a match rate of 99.5 percent.
- The physician assistant Class of 2019 achieved a 100 percent first-time pass rate on the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE). This is the second consecutive year that DMU’s PA program graduates achieved a perfect pass rate.
- Every year, the DMU Clinic serves approximately 40,000 patient visits and provides about 1,700 rotation weeks for students.
- DMU’s 125 faculty represent 894 years of service to the University and its students. Creation of endowed faculty positions – a major priority of Purple & Proud – will help the University attract and retain these outstanding scholar
- DMU has received the Institutional Excellence Award of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and the Friends of Iowa Civil Rights Award.
- With public and private funding, in December 2017 the University launched its DMU Provider Education Project, an effort to better equip clinical students to recognize mental illness among patients and counsel them on treatment. DMU is the nation’s first university to partner with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to provide this training.
