For more than 30 years, the School of Planning, Public Policy and Management (PPPM) and its predecessor programs have been offering students training in rigorous, professional programs. We support diverse perspectives, beliefs, and cultures and are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive community. We provide the skills and mentorship needed for our students to tackle complex global challenges and positively affect the people, communities, and environments around them. Graduates from our program work around the world for national, state, and local governments, for nonprofit organizations and in the private sector.
School Vision
The School of Planning, Public Policy and Management is a national leader known for academic rigor, intellectual leadership, stellar evidence-based research, innovative applied instruction, and its inclusive and equitable climate.
Committed to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Since 2015, we have been actively working to address diversity, equity, and inclusion in the School of PPPM. This joint faculty and student effort has been called the PPPM Equity Initiative. Although we have made progress, there is further need to address these issues for all members of the PPPM community. As a community, we commit to holding each other accountable to these standards of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We also recognize that a host of related national conversations and events have taught us that to accomplish this we need to center on the role that race/ethnicity plays in adversely affecting students, faculty, staff, and alumni. We join other institutions who are figuring out in the moment what leading by race means. There is building consensus that advancing equity requires us to focus specifically on race/ethnicity as we strive to address all areas of marginalization and further our awareness on the intersectionality of various forms of oppression. It is in this spirit that we have updated what PPPM means by diversity, equity, and inclusion. We also provide links to past, current, and ongoing actions taken by our school to advance equity. Our work here is not static but evolving in response to continual dialogue and feedback.
Diversity Action Planning in PPPM
The Equity Initiative leads PPPM’s efforts to implement actions, strategies, and policies related to equity and diversity. These efforts are linked to Diversity Action Planning (DAP) coordinated by the College of Design and the University of Oregon's Division of Equity and Inclusion. You can find more details about PPPM's efforts on our PPPM Equity Initiative webpage.
Diversity Action Planning in the College of Design
The College of Design's Diversity Action Plan was developed in 2017, with input from community members across the College of Design. The Dean’s Fellow for Diversity chairs the Equity and Inclusion Committee and leads strategic initiatives, including implementing the Diversity Action Plan.
Defining Our Principles
Diversity
PPPM foregrounds racial and ethnic identities that have been historically excluded or have experienced substandard access to resources to meet their educational aspirations and potential in our public service fields. This includes all Indigenous peoples and individuals from the various Black, Latina/o/x, and Asian diasporas. Our centering of racial and ethnic identities does not contest or exclude the various other identities of groups that also experience marginalization and structural challenges in higher education, including gender, sexual orientation, ability, and lower socioeconomic background. PPPM must also be accountable to these and other under-represented identities in higher education. Yet, the targeting of our approach by race/ethnicity as they intersect with other marginalized identities is aimed to address acute and sustained disadvantages.
Equity
PPPM commits to centering racial and ethnic equity when allocating resources. Our resources should support the development of initiatives, programs, and support systems that aim to address, reverse, and change the social, political, and economic structures of inequality. An equity lens filters all the organizational decisions we make regarding curriculum development, faculty and staff hires, student recruitment, retention and support, and PPPM’s development and growth.
Inclusion
Our aim is to create an school environment where the initiatives, programs, research, and support systems we develop are geared toward addressing the nuanced and complex needs of our community members internally and those we work with who are Indigenous and of the various Black, Latina/o/x, and Asian diasporas, in addition to others whose identities are marginalized in higher education. In so doing, we strive to support and empower their voices, ambitions, and whole-person development.
Program Mission Statements
Public Administration
The purpose of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program is to promote evidence-based decision making and the efficient and ethical stewardship of societal and environmental resources by professionals in the public and nonprofit sectors.
We support this purpose by training a diverse cohort of students from the US and abroad to be effective administrators, analysts, and advocates in their communities. The MPA provides a curriculum that values students who are committed to public service, offering a close connection between multidisciplinary, policy-oriented research and opportunities for real-world applications. Students are supported in creating a customized course plan that allows for the most effective use of their time as full-time or part-time students.
Our program combines a rigorous academic approach in the development of analytical and managerial skills with highly experiential opportunities such as the 48-hour policy project and a client-centered capstone research project.
Community and Regional Planning
The Community and Regional Planning program prepares innovative public leaders through a challenging and applied curriculum and an inclusive learning environment. It creates and disseminates new knowledge and engages in intensive partnerships to solve society's most pressing economic, environmental, and social issues.
Nonprofit Management
The Master of Nonprofit Management program fosters nonprofit executive leadership for the rapidly evolving nonprofit/NGO sector. We believe that the most effective nonprofit management requires a practical, experiential education that teaches vital skills and allows students to practice those skills in administrative service to regional organizations. To best prepare future nonprofit executives, we provide a rigorous curriculum tailored to meet the distinct needs of nonprofit and philanthropic organizations.
Undergraduate Major Learning Objective
The objective of the bachelor's degree in Planning, Public Policy and Management is to provide students with a broad professional background as well as a sound basis for graduate study in fields such as planning, public policy, management, business, law, journalism, and social welfare. In addition, degree recipients are prepared for entry-level positions in a variety of public service agencies and organizations.