Thomas Brooks on Building a University That Heals
Thomas Brooks, VP of Marketing and Enrollment at Divine Mercy University, brings nearly 30 years of higher education experience and thirteen-plus years of active-duty Naval service to one of the most purposeful niches in graduate education. DMU is a Catholic graduate school in Sterling, Virginia, educating mental health practitioners through an integrated model that blends rigorous science with 2,000 years of Catholic Christian teaching.
In the ten-plus years since Thomas arrived, the university has evolved from a single doctoral program and one Master’s level program into a multi-program institution with over 700 students, more than 130 tuition reduction partnerships, and a newly launched mental health app called True Presence. In this Beyond the Brief conversation, Thomas shares what the military taught him about accountability, why a graduate who heals one person can ultimately touch thousands, and why a “yes or no” is equally fine in DMUs admissions process.
From the flight deck to the enrollment office
Q: Your path to higher education ran through the U.S. Navy. Tell us about that journey and what brought you to Divine Mercy University.
Thomas: I did eight-plus years of active duty in Naval aviation, serving in two different squadrons aboard two different U.S. Naval Carriers, and five years as a Naval Reserve recruiter before a medical discharge. Getting into education right after that felt like a natural fit because recruiting and admissions are really the same core work: understanding what someone needs, figuring out whether there’s a genuine fit, and guiding the interested person accordingly. I’ve spent nearly 30 years in admissions and marketing since then, everything from large for-profit systems to small startups, roles as CMO and COO. DMU came along about ten and a half years ago, when it was still called the Institute of Psychological Sciences, primarily offering the Psy.D. in clinical psychology and the newly launched Master’s in Psychology program. We’ve built considerably from there.
Q: The name Divine Mercy University carries real theological weight. What drove the naming decision?
Thomas: Our tagline is faith, reason, and action. When you think about what we do, which is produce graduates who go out and help people reclaim their lives, the concept of divine mercy connects directly to that mission. We are not just an academic institution. We are a mental health provider system in the making, one graduate at a time. One of our graduates can impact anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 people in a lifetime, directly and indirectly. That is a staggering level of accountability, and the name reflects what we believe the work is ultimately about.
The integrated model: science meets 2,000 years of teaching
Q: DMU is a Catholic graduate school, but you have students across the Christian spectrum and beyond. How do you describe the model to someone encountering it for the first time?
Thomas: If you attend a comparable secular program, you may learn essentially the same science. What makes ours different is the underpinning. Two thousand years of Catholic Christian teaching informs how we look at the whole person. We use what we call the Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person (CCMMP), a holistic framework. We are not trying to push a diagnosis on someone. We are looking at what they have, what got them there, and what other dimensions of their life are relevant to healing. For someone with deep faith who is struggling, there could be a fractured relationship with that faith. We address that alongside everything else. That is what our graduates come out knowing how to do, and employers notice it.
Q: Your mean student age is approximately 39. These are not traditional students shopping for their first graduate program. How does that shape your marketing and enrollment approach?
Thomas: While 39 is our mean student age, we definitely have a broad mix of students, from fresh out of undergrad to their 60s and 70s. At the graduate level, people are comparing cost, rigor, outcomes, faculty credentials, and time commitment. They want to know that what they learn will matter the moment they step into a clinical setting. One example we hear from many of our M.S. in Psychology graduates is that it was what they call an immediate degree. They were implementing what they learned before they even graduated. That is the story we tell, and it is an easy story to tell because it is true. You are not producing a piece of paper. You are producing a practitioner.
Partnerships, pipelines, and the right kind of growth
Q: You have over 130 tuition reduction agreements with organizations ranging from Catholic colleges to the National Guard. How do you think about building a partnership ecosystem at that scale?
Thomas: The goal is always to be strategic, not just to accumulate agreements. We want to be in partnerships where our programs genuinely serve the constituent group. The military is a natural fit because the skills we teach translate directly to the needs of service members and veterans. We are working with the Air National Guard’s enlisted association, EANGUS, on a national agreement right now. We are also a pathway provider for SHRM recertifications, which opens doors worldwide across the HR profession. Eventually, we want to reach 400 or 500 tuition reduction agreements. But we will build toward that number the same way we build everything else: with intent, not momentum for its own sake.
Q: How do you characterize the admissions funnel at a school this focused and this purposeful?
Thomas: I break it into two groups. The uninitiated find us through search engines alongside two or three other programs. They are comparison shopping, and that is fine. We get them the information they need and let the rigor, the outcomes, and the model do the work. The initiated come to us already knowing who we are, through an undergraduate partnership, a recommendation, or direct experience with the community. For them, it is about discernment more than discovery. In both cases, our approach is the same: educate them thoroughly on the front end so that a mutual fit can be determined. A yes is wonderful. A no is acceptable. Putting the wrong student in the wrong program helps nobody.
Brand, story, and the accountability of outcomes
Q: You oversaw a brand refresh at DMU and have been shaping the external story for a decade. How do you think about branding for an institution this distinctive?
Thomas: It is almost inverted from how you typically think about brand. Promises made, promises kept, but in reverse order. The reputation is already being built in the field by every graduate we produce. Our job is to tell that story accurately and compellingly. Fortunately, the story is a good one. Strong rigor, strong science, strong outcomes, and a model that produces graduates employers describe as better formed and quicker on the uptake. When your graduates are going out to help people who are desperate, who may be at rock bottom, you’d better be producing people who are genuinely ready for that. We are. That is not something you have to spin.
Q: You mentioned AI is on your radar, but that you are approaching it with intentionality. What does that mean in practice for a school like DMU?
Thomas: AI is still in its infancy, and we have already seen that it can be manipulated or deployed poorly. For us, the immediate opportunity is what I call the shy inquiry, a research-oriented prospective student who does not want to talk to anyone. They want to go in, gather information, and make a decision with minimal human interaction. We want AI that can genuinely assist that kind of student through the research process while also helping us determine mutual fit. A chatbot that just funnels people into an application form is not what we are looking for. We are looking for something that learns and grows and can help the student understand what they are actually getting into, and whether that aligns with what they actually need.
True presence and what comes next
Q: Tell us about the new TruePresence.com app. What is it, and why is it significant beyond DMU’s immediate orbit?
Thomas: TruePresence.com is our newly launched app, still in the beta test area, and it is intended to fall under DMU’s third school, The Lifelong Learning Institute, alongside the School of Psychology and the School of Counseling. At its core, it is an LMS and CRM platform for therapists, clinicians, and mentors to work with their respective clients. A clinician can manage their entire caseload through it. A client in crisis does not have to wait two or three months for an appointment. They can get matched immediately with someone ready to work. And on the mentor side, we are integrating the principles behind the CCMMP so that someone working in a campus Catholic center, a priest, a spiritual director, a Newman guide, or FOCUS Missionaries has practical tools for students who come to them anxious, overwhelmed, or lost. The world is struggling right now. True Presence is our way of making what we teach clinically available at scale.
For the record
Q: Is there a little-known fact about you that you’d care to share?
Thomas: Most people do not know this about my wife and me, but our giving is really centered on feeding people. Whether it is working with food banks, making food ourselves and distributing it, or volunteering with organizations that get meals to people who need them, that is where our hearts go. I think there are many people in the world who are trying to do what they can when they can. For us, that is feeding folks. And if I can tell anyone one thing on that front, it is this: if you want to become involved in supporting a need, do not stop with the first organization you find. Sometimes it takes three or four attempts to find the right fit. The people who can help are out there. Do the work to find them.
Thomas Brooks is helping build something rare at Divine Mercy University: a graduate institution where the brand promise is written in outcomes, the model is rooted in a 2,000-year tradition, and the mission is measured in lives healed. Thank you, Thomas, for all you shared.