It’s not surprising that in her illustrious career as an academician, administrator and leader in higher education, Des Moines University President and CEO Angela L. Walker Franklin, Ph.D., has been revered and honored by more than one educational institution. Her undergraduate alma mater, Furman University, did so at its annual Bell Tower Ball Feb. 17: The Greenville, South Carolina, institution celebrated her accomplishments and contributions with its Carl F. Kohrt Distinguished Alumni Award.
The Kohrt Award is presented in recognition of significant professional or personal accomplishments and in gratitude for continued loyalty to Furman University.
Franklin, who became DMU’s 15th president in 2011, has worked in higher education for nearly four decades at institutions including Meharry Medical College in Nashville and Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. In December 2018, she launched Purple & Proud, a $25 million fundraising campaign whose goal was surpassed a year later. She and the DMU Board subsequently doubled the goal. In January 2024, the campaign exceeded $51 million.
In 2023, DMU fulfilled Franklin’s bold plan to move to a new 88-acre campus in West Des Moines, Iowa, with state-of-the-art facilities and technology that is shaping the future of medical and health sciences education. Not even a worldwide pandemic delayed the move in 2023, which coincided with DMU’s 125th anniversary.
A former Furman trustee who also served on the Furman Alumni Board and Parent and Family Council, Franklin has received numerous other awards, including the 2022 Dale S. Dodson Award from the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine in recognition of her contributions to the advancement and support of osteopathic medical education. She was inducted into the Iowa Business Hall of Fame and received the 2017 American Psychological Association Training Advisory Committee Special Award, the 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award from the Iowa Department of Human Rights and the 2014 Women of Influence Award from the Des Moines Business Record.
Franklin is an active member of several Central Iowa boards, including those of UnityPoint Health and the Greater Des Moines Partnership. She chairs AACOM’s Assembly of Presidents and will soon serve on the Adaptive Work Group Addressing Racism in Healthcare and the George Washington Carver Statuary Hall Project.
Franklin is author of the memoir An Unconventional Journey… An Unlikely Choice, which recounts her path to the college presidency. She often speaks on topics such as women leaders, transformative leadership and building a culturally competent and diverse workforce.
Franklin graduated from Furman with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, magna cum laude, in 1981. A Phi Beta Kappa inductee, she received her master’s and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology from Emory University.
