The mission of GSAPP is threefold: education, research/ scholarship, and public service. Its goal is to prepare well-educated, qualified, and competent direct-service psychologists who have a special commitment to direct community involvement and to underserved populations-professionals who can integrate scientific knowledge with innovation in the delivery of psychological services to individuals, families, groups, and organizations. Professionals receiving a doctoral degree in psychology should be capable of extending psychological knowledge and exhibiting the high level of analytic skills and theoretical understanding needed to use existing and emerging psychological knowledge. Given GSAPP's integrative and holistic approach to service delivery, graduates also should be equipped with considerable versatility in the choice and application of intervention approaches and modalities.

In the education domain, GSAPP is committed to meeting the state and national need for well-trained, doctoral-level practitioners in clinical, organizational, and school psychology.

The school`s research and scholarly mission is to be in the forefront of efforts to improve the empirical, theoretical, and philosophical foundations for the integration of psychological theory and practice.

Public service is part of GSAPP's mission for two reasons. First, a core assumption of its philosophy of professional education is that practice and theory are intertwined and best taught in a way that integrates the two. Second, as a unit of New Jersey's state university, GSAPP is committed to providing psychological services to the university, surrounding community, and the state at large. Serving underserved and diverse populations is central to the school`s mission.

The GSAPP faculty and senior staff also participate in training graduate-level psychologists from the independent, research-oriented clinical Ph.D. program in areas where their research interests are uniquely pertinent to the content and issues of professional and applied psychology. Graduates of the Ph.D. psychology programs have as their ultimate professional goal teaching and clinical research in college or university settings, rather than becoming a scholarly direct-service provider.

In addition to educating students to respond to the professional challenges of the future, GSAPP's faculty and staff are committed to meeting the needs of students during their years in graduate school. This includes opportunities to provide input into the training process itself, to develop an appreciation of the multicultural backgrounds of peers, to participate in the rich life of the university, and to network with alumni and others who can serve as mentors and help prepare students for work in new careers. Toward these goals, there are a number of student groups and faculty-student committees at GSAPP. (See "Student Groups at GSAPP" in the Student Life and Services section.)