DMU’s new West Des Moines campus is still a work in progress, but Dave Kapaska, D.O.’86, M.B.A., and his wife, Mary Ann, already have made their mark on it by naming the Telehealth Room, to be located in the Innovation Building, where students will receive training to deliver telehealth services.
It’s a fitting gift to the Purple & Proud Campaign: During his tenure at the Sioux Falls, SD-based Avera Health, Kapaska, chair of the University’s Board of Trustees, helped the organization achieve world prominence in telehealth innovation.
Robert Good, D.O.’77, and his wife, Brenda, have named the Active Learning Practice Laboratory in the Edge of Advancement Building, also a fitting campaign gift: The couple are champions of an educational approach that emphasizes hands-on, lifelong learning.
A wide variety of naming opportunities on the new campus offers donors highly visible ways to make their mark on the University. Do you want to invest in spaces where future health professionals will gain life-changing knowledge and skills? Consider naming a learning studio, learning commons or study room. Do you want to support places that will connect faculty and students across programs? Name a research laboratory, meeting room, the Genius Bar or Alumni Court. Or go big and put your name on an entire building.
“Naming opportunities offer wonderful ways to honor one’s family and make a lasting impact on the physical spaces where transformative learning and collaboration will occur. They allow donors to be part of something extraordinary – the creation of the medical and health sciences campus for the future.”
Stephanie Greiner, DMU’s chief development officer
Naming opportunities are available for multiple aspects of these new campus buildings:
- The Edge of Advancement Building will embody the University’s vision for educating highly competent, compassionate health care professionals. This “front door to campus” will include adaptable spaces for classes, small groups, community events and interprofessional collaboration.
- The Innovation Building will house immersive, technology-rich spaces including research labs and simulation and skills suites. It also will include the campus’s main food service area.
- The Health & Wellbeing Building will reflect DMU’s commitment to holistic health with its multifaceted fitness center, medical clinic and student counseling services area.
- Additional naming opportunities include various community commons, outdoor spaces, administrative offices and the three “pathways” that will connect the Edge of Advancement Building and the Innovation Building and offer beautiful views of campus.
“Donors who choose a naming opportunity will have a huge role in the success of our new campus as well as of the Purple & Proud Campaign,” Greiner says. “They will inspire generations of future health professionals who will see their names on display. Most important, these donors will make a powerful investment in the high-quality medical and health sciences education that DMU will continue to provide.”
Beaming with pride
On a sunny, first day of autumn, DMU’s new campus steering committee watched a white beam be “flown” to its permanent home in the uppermost southwest corner of the Innovation Building, under construction on the University’s new 88-acre campus in West Des Moines. The beam carried the signatures of dozens of members of the DMU community. The University is on schedule to move to its new home in 2023.
“This special day and the signed beam symbolize our collective vision for the future of medical and health sciences education and the belief of so many that we will fulfill it,” DMU President and CEO Angela L. Walker Franklin, Ph.D., said at the Sept. 22 event. “Thanks to the dedicated efforts of Turner Construction, Formation Group and all of our partner organizations, we remain right on schedule for substantial completion of our new campus in December 2022. The opportunity to be able to design and build an advanced health sciences university is exhilarating.”
To learn how you can make a lasting mark on DMU by naming a space on the new campus, visit campaign.dmu.edu/ways-to-support or contact Stephanie Greiner at 515-271-1386 or stephanie.greiner@dmu.edu.
