Giving to DMU · Impact
The difference a gift makes, in their own words.
Most benefactors never see what their gift becomes. This page gives you a glimpse of who is impacted by our donors' generosity. Across DMU's history and video archive, the videos below link to moments where true generosity, real transformation, and positive impact show up on film.
The numbers
Every figure here has a source you can watch.
Each figure below was stated by a named member of the DMU community in a recorded session, and links to the moment they said it.
Up to 35%
support through diocese and ministry partnership agreements
Tom Brooks, PsyD program webinar→Scholarships and Formation
Stories of transformation from our students and alumni.
This is what the generosity of others made possible for each of them. Now they are helping to transform others with their degrees in psychology, counseling, and spiritual direction.
Bernadette Mutirende-Colin
MS in Psychology alumna · Rwanda → New Jersey
Bernadette came to the program from Rwanda. She now runs a life-coaching practice in West Orange, New Jersey, and credits the two years of study with healing her before it equipped her.
Watch the moment (from 6:52)This program helped me to be a total transformation... the two years helped me really to heal completely... I could write and cry, and it helped me to heal.
Dr. Isaiah Lamb
PsyD alumnus · Psychologist and adjunct faculty at University of St. Thomas, MN
Isaiah graduated from DMU's doctoral program and now serves at a university counseling center. When he was a student, he was asked how students afford a psychology doctorate.
Watch the moment (from 55:41)Almost everyone here is utilizing student loans for their day to day living... bringing hope to people's lives and bringing healing, I think that's something far beyond what the reward of money could ever give you.
Charice Bennett
MS in Psychology alumna
Charice paid for her degree three ways at once. One of the three was other people's generosity.
Watch the moment (from 40:10)I was a single person doing a master's in psychology. I actually did a third student loan, a third out of pocket, and a third through scholarships.
Kathryn Landa
Spiritual Direction Certificate alumna · Southern California
Kathryn finished the certificate and put it to work at once. She still meets with directees she began seeing as a student, and a retreat center brought her onto its spiritual direction team because, in her words, they were anxious to have more trained people.
Watch the moment (from 9:02)I see several people that I started seeing through the program, still today... I have a practice... and I end up getting referrals from other people as well.
Ripple Effect
Transformed people transform others.
Here are four features where someone describes how their own experience of transformation has impacted the way they see and minister to others.
Dr. Melinda Moore
Newman Lecture · suicide bereavement and post-traumatic growth
Dr. Moore is a suicidologist. In a Newman Lecture on suicide and its aftermath, she speaks for five minutes about losing her husband, and about how that grief, met with faith, redirected her research and her vocation toward the bereaved.
Watch the moment (from 16:46)It was the worst experience of my life. But I also tell people it was the best experience of my life. And that may seem absurd, but I will have to tell you that it really took the blinders off. It changed me on a profound level.
Dr. Gregory Gisla
PsyD alumnus · Chief Clinical Officer at Sierra Health + Wellness Centers
Dr. Gisla directed psychiatric emergency response at a major medical center. At the 2021 commencement he described what DMU's formation does in the hardest rooms in medicine.
Watch the moment (from 2:26:37)I know that the patient before me is a human person, one created inherently good in the image of a God who does not have favorites. Their goodness was not earned and cannot be taken from them.
Debbie Berg
MS in Psychology alumna · mother and advocate
Debbie earned the degree while working as a dietitian. When her daughter Kristen suffered a severe stroke, the capstone research Debbie had done on dignity and personhood became the training she used to hold every caregiver to it.
Watch the moment (from 3:49)My Divine Mercy experience, through my capstone project and a lot of the reading that I did, helped me make sure anyone that worked with Kristen treated her with dignity... My Divine Mercy education fully empowered me to do the right thing by Kristen.
Dr. Philip Scrofani
2024 Faculty Recognition · decades forming DMU's psychologists
Dr. Scrofani told the story of 'Nick,' a severely psychotic patient other clinicians had given up on — and what happened when someone finally looked for the goodness in him.
Watch the moment (from 14:51)When you notice something good about someone, somehow they kind of pick up without a word being said that you saw something in them, and they kind of see it themselves... A relationship was formed. We had made contact.
The need
What the Church is asking for.
Three bishops, from three dioceses, describing the same shortage on camera.
Bishop Earl K. Fernandes
Diocese of Columbus
Bishop Fernandes was asked where he refers people in his diocese who need clinical care consistent with their faith.
Watch the moment (from 9:28)And where do I refer them? I still don't have a good answer in my diocese, and that's why I'm looking to places like Divine Mercy University.
Bishop Keith Chylinski
Auxiliary Bishop of Philadelphia · Master's in Clinical Psychology alumnus
Bishop Chylinski holds a Master's in Clinical Psychology from DMU. He was rector of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary before his episcopal appointment.
Watch the moment (from 9:11)DMU is truly an act of God in the world. The church needs you. The church needs qualified, faith-filled mental health clinicians as part of her saving mission to bring health and healing into the world.
Bishop Michael Burbidge
Diocese of Arlington
Bishop Burbidge described the shortage his diocese faces in its own schools, where student mental health needs have grown since COVID.
Watch the moment (from 8:25)Our schools — we don't have enough school counselors. And of course, in our Catholic schools, we want those who are Catholic school counselors.
Where they end up
The people on this page don't stay on campus. From the same archive, we mapped where 91 students and alumni serve — clinics, parishes, dioceses, campuses, and the military, from Rwanda to Rhode Island.
See where our graduates serveGiving