Des Moines University has selected Angela Walker Franklin to serve as the school’s 15^th president, DMU’s board of trustees announced Monday. A search committee has been working to fill the position since the departure of Gov.-elect Terry Branstad in October 2009.

Franklin, who is currently executive vice president and provost at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., has a doctorate in clinical psychology from Emory University in Atlanta and is a licensed clinical psychologist. She is expected to begin her new position in the spring.

“We are thrilled to have Dr. Franklin on board and know our students, staff, faculty, graduates and university friends will be impressed with what she brings to the university,” board of trustees chairman Dr. James Grekin said in a press release.

Franklin, who has worked in higher education for more than 20 years, currently oversees academic and administrative departments for three schools within Meharry Medical College and served as its acting president in the summer of 2009. She holds a professorship in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the medical school.

Prior to her role in Nashville, Franklin held several positions at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga., including vice dean, associate vice president for academic and student affairs, associate dean for student affairs and curriculum, assistant dean for admissions and student affairs, director of counseling services and assistant professor of psychiatry.

She is in her fourth term on the board of trustees of Furman University, a small liberal arts college in Greenville, S.C., and has been an American Council on Education Fellow at Oglethorpe University.

The search committee announced the final three candidates in October. The other two candidates were Stephen Dengle, DMU’s current interim president and chief operating officer, and Gene Meyer, commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety.