University of Mount Saint Vincent opens institute focused on justice and community engagement

Burns, left, said she wants students to know they have a voice in solving injustices.

The university is the first ever headquarters for D2C, said Williams, far left.

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The University of Mount Saint Vincent announced Sept. 30 it officially opened the Dedication to Community Justice Institute — a program created in partnership with Dedication to Community, a nonprofit that aims to build trust between law enforcement and the public, among other justice initiatives.

The institute will be a hub for education and community engagement centered on justice, according to the university. This includes coursework and “justice conversations” — where students come together to discuss inequities on campus and beyond, university president Susan Burns told The Press. The school also welcomed its inaugural senior fellow Corny Koehl, who has worked in media production for decades and will teach about how storytelling can be a tool for change.

Some of the coursework includes crisis communications, music as resistance and the historical trauma of the African American community, Burns said.

Burns told The Press when she learned about the work D2C was doing, she believed it would benefit students and add value to the campus. She and D2C founder and CEO M. Quentin Williams started discussing what a justice institute at the university would look like, and the program materialized from there.

Williams said he grew up in New York living “in squalor,” with rough familial dynamics and a reading deficit disorder that made school challenging. His mother was an encouraging force who told him to persevere, and he eventually worked his way up from being a law clerk to an FBI agent, senior roles at the NFL and NBA, a federal prosecutor, and a motivational speaker.

D2C was founded with the intention of educating society about justice, and to show the next generation that professional and personal dynamics “determine your destiny,” Williams said. He and others shared their stories of overcoming struggle, hoping it would lead college students to live up to their potential.

That version of D2C has been ongoing for decades, Williams said, but in 2012 he observed tension between police and communities. D2C started an initiative to teach community members how to conduct themselves if they are pulled over or arrested, and to teach cops “how to serve better, not police better,” he said. D2C continued to launch similar programs over the years, and in January 2026, Williams cofounded the D2C Justice Institute initiative at UMSV — the first ever headquarters for D2C.

“It gives us the academic platform to teach some of the most meaningful lessons in life for students,” Williams said, adding that having a home at a college campus allows D2C to “nurture that captive audience of students, faculty and staff to understand our way of pursuing justice.”

The program is built on five justice pillars, according to the university: social justice, economic justice, criminal justice, restorative justice and procedural justice.

Koehl said she draws heavily from her time working on Oprah & Friends, a radio show that launched in 2006 and was rebranded as Oprah Radio. Oprah Winfrey was able to connect with a wide range of people because she herself was fundamentally vulnerable, Koehl said.

“Once you can make something entertaining, and once you can make something relatable, you can really change the world,” Koehl said, adding she anticipates helping students be a “big voice for justice.”

Burns pointed to justice as part of the university’s DNA, stretching back to its founding by the Sisters of Charity of New York, a congregation that has historically fought against inequities from the Civil Rights Movement to President Trump’s aggressive immigration measures.

Now is an especially important moment for this kind of work, Burns said, given the political divide across the country. The institute could be a place to find commonality, and understand another person’s value regardless of differing opinions, she said.

Burns said she hopes students who partake in the program understand that they are part of the solution to inequity.

“Their voice matters,” Burns said. “They have a responsibility to themselves, to their employers, to their communities — not just to identify and point to issues of justice, but to have action, orientation toward those injustices.”