Western Washington University provides quality educational opportunities to students seeking degrees at the undergraduate and graduate level and for students desiring continuing education. Western is a public comprehensive, residential university with a strong commitment to quality and excellence built around a strong core curriculum in the humanities, arts, sciences, and technology. The instruction activity encompasses the entire spectrum of interrelated services that are necessary in accomplishing Western's primary mission learning and scholarship of the highest possible quality. To support the teaching mission of the Institution, the services within this activity includes classroom instruction, scholarship, public service, primary support services, library services, student support services, technology services and support, and the operation and maintenance of campus facilities.

Western Washington University provides research programs that advance the instruction, public service, and community outreach components of its instruction activity. These programs include the Institute for Watershed Studies, the Institute for Environmental Toxicology, and summer research fellowships. In addition, grants and contracts provided by federal, state, and local agencies and from private sources enable Western to conduct research and training that provides benefits not only to the granting agency, but enables faculty and students to maintain and enhance their scholarship and to advance knowledge on many social and environmental issues of concern to the citizens of the state of Washington.

This activity includes the central administrative functions of the institution. These functions support the entire institution and are not directly attributable to a specific activity. Included in this activity are the administrative and management services necessary for the efficient and effective operation of Western Washington University, such as the Offices of the President, Provost, and Business and Financial Affairs, Faculty Senate, Internal Auditor, Board of Trustees, Institutional Research, and Planning and Budgeting.