Portland State University’s (PSU) motto Let Knowledge Serve the City identifies a key piece of the University’s DNA as a community-engaged institution. As educators in PSU’s signature general education program, University Studies, we work intentionally as colleagues to catalyze transformative teaching and learning to build--with our students--a just world.

In AY 2016-17, through an iterative process involving faculty, administrators, staff, and students, University Studies adopted vision and mission statements to reflect and ground our efforts:

Vision: Challenging us to think holistically, care deeply, and engage courageously in imagining and co-creating a just world.

Mission: University Studies’ inclusive pedagogy

• provokes students to build self-efficacy through relational learning across difference;
• encourages a community of educators to practice engaged teaching for transformative learning; and
• advances civic engagement, reflective practice, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Following the development of this programmatic vision and mission, we co-created a teaching ethos in AY 2017-18 to identify UNST’s pedagogical beliefs, commitments, and practices.