Given his 25 years of teaching and service at Des Moines University, his role in helping develop its podiatric medicine and physician assistant programs, and the thousands of students he taught during his career, the late anatomy Professor Frank Kneussl, Ph.D., has had a huge impact on the University, on health care and on the medical professions. Yet Dr. Kneussl, who died on Jan. 17, 2011, will make another positive difference for even more generations to come: He worked with the DMU development staff to leave 25 percent of his estate to the University in his will, a gift that will benefit DMU students into perpetuity.
“While all gifts to DMU are important and appreciated, planned gifts like Dr. Kneussl’s enable donors to have an especially powerful impact,” says Sue Huppert, vice president for institutional advancement. “Planned gifts also detail wishes of the donors and, if they make us aware of their gifts, allow us to thank them.”
Dr. Kneussl could be “kind of thorny and gruff,” says Daniel Deavers, Ph.D., professor emeritus of physiology and pharmacology. The two men joined the DMU faculty on the same day, July 1, 1980, and became good friends. “But he really cared about teaching. He wanted students to gain the knowledge and skills they needed.”
