Des Moines University officials issued a news release this morning, inviting Iowa media to a “Branstad announcement” on Friday at 1 p.m.
Terry Branstad served four terms as Iowa’s governor, leaving office in January, 1999, and has been laying plans to seek a fifth term in 2010. Branstad became president and C.E.O. of Des Moines University in 2003. The school is located on Grand Avenue in Des Moines just eight blocks away from the governor’s mansion where Branstad and his family lived for 16 years. The institution, which was founded in 1898, is the “only private medical school in Iowa,” according to a university release, “offering graduate-level, professional degree programs in osteopathic medicine, podiatric medicine, physical therapy, physician assistant studies, anatomy, biomedical sciences, health care administration and public health.”
According to the university’s release: “Des Moines University President Terry E. Branstad will make an announcement related to his future with the University.” In a perhaps accidental admission that Branstad is leaving the university, the release goes on to talk about Branstad in the past tense. “He was the 14th president in the University’s 111-year history,” the release says in its closing paragraph.