Emory University's mission is to create, preserve, teach, and apply knowledge in the service of humanity.

To fulfill this mission, the University supports the full range of scholarship, from undergraduate to advanced graduate and professional instruction, and from basic research to its application in public service. While being a comprehensive research university, Emory limits its academic scope to those fields in which, by virtue of its history and location, it can excel. Hence its academic programs focus on the arts and sciences, business, law, theology, and the health professions. These disciplines are unified by their devotion to liberal learning; by cooperative interdisciplinary programs; and by the common pursuit of intellectual distinction.

The Emory community is open to all who meet its high standards of intelligence, competence, and integrity. It welcomes a diversity of ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, religious, national, and international backgrounds, believing that the intellectual and social energy that results from such diversity is a primary asset of the University.

The University, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church, cherishes its historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. While Emory's programs are today entirely nonsectarian (except for those at the Candler School of Theology), the University has derived from this heritage the conviction that education can be a strong moral force in both society and the lives of its individual members.