Mission Statement
The Mission of the Department of Public Policy and Administration at West Chester University is to provide high quality accessible public service education for a diverse group of emerging and existing public service leaders. Our programs prepare students to manage and lead across boundaries of the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. A community of accomplished scholars and practitioners instructs and mentors students in pursuing the public interest with accountability and transparency serving professionally with competence, efficiency, and objectivity; acting ethically to uphold the public trust; and demonstrating respect, equality, and fairness in dealings with citizens and fellow public servants. The Department of Public Policy and Administration, with its affiliated Center for Social and Economic Policy Research, provides community access to faculty expertise, applied scholarship, and guidance in the practice of public affairs, administration, and policy.
Public Service values are a distinctive feature of our profession and are at the heart of the public administration curriculum. Values not only inform our attitudes about the ends to which we should aspire, but they also present standards of conduct that inform how we ought to go about achieving those ends. These values involve action motivated by a concern for democratic, professional, ethical and human values, which are also reflected in the NASPAA Standards and Policy and the WCU Mission Statement. To learn more about the WCU Department of Public Policy and Administration's values, please read our WCU PPA Social Justice Statement .