Welcome to Academic Affairs at Portland State University
Portland State University is an exciting 21st-century urban university that exemplifies its motto, Let Knowledge Serve the City. This motto inspires the teaching and research of an accomplished faculty whose work and students span the globe. Because we see engagement at the core of what we do, we are active partners in a wide array of regional, national, and international engagement activities.
Community and Partnerships
Engagement describes Portland State's approach to collaboration, including multi-disciplinary faculty and student work, with other institutions and between Portland State and its larger communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnerships and reciprocity. Through its engagement, Portland State creates and transmits knowledge with meaning and ensures relevant and authentic teaching and learning experiences. We share the vision of a university so thoroughly engaged with its community that people throughout the region think of it as "our" university. The needs of that community are changing and expanding, as the population and diversity for our region. We are changing with them.
Academic Offerings
A university of quality is so because of its people and programs. Portland State University students, faculty, and staff are exceptional, innovative, and involved—and so are Portland State's academic offerings. PSU strives to be known for the development of talent, welcoming a diversity of students, and working hard to help them succeed in their educational endeavors. Through engaging learning experiences with real-world problems, or faculty and staff help students build the knowledge, skills, values, and motivation for making a change in both their own lives and their communities.
Rigorous Research
Because Portland State is the only comprehensive research university in this metropolitan region, we accept the responsibility to contribute to and sustain, the quality of life here. We approach this responsibility through partnerships with other educational institutions in the region, particularly with the community colleges, K-12 education, and sister institutions such as the Oregon Health & Science University. The engaged scholarship of our faculty and students generates, transmits, integrates, and applies knowledge through collaborations designed to contribute to the public good locally and globally.