ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996 TAG: 9608070065
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH
The American Bar Association on Tuesday fully accredited the law school at Pat Robertson's Regent University, 10 years after the law school opened.
The accreditation will help the law school attract the best students and the finest legal teachers, said Robertson, the religious broadcaster who is Regent's founder and chancellor.
The importance of accreditation is that it allows a law school's graduates to take the bar exam anywhere in the country.
To be accredited, an institution must meet certain criteria, including adequacy of classroom space, number of volumes in the law library, the availability of scholarships and job placement opportunities.
Regent's law school received provisional accreditation in 1989. The ABA said then that the school needed to address concerns about finances and academic freedom before it could receive full accreditation.
``Initially, there was somewhat of a hostile feeling toward the notion of the biblical education,'' said J. Nelson Happy, law school dean.
The school teaches the biblical basis of the American legal system, and the ABA eventually grew comfortable with the idea, Happy said.
The university also invested about $30 million - including $15 million for a new building - in order to meet the ABA's standards, Happy said. - Associated Press
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