DATE: Saturday, October 11, 1997            TAG: 9710110476

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   63 lines

REGENT HAS A CAPITAL IDEA: A D.C. CAMPUS

Regent University, steadily expanding on the strength of its healthy endowment, will open a branch campus in Washington, D.C., next spring to focus on government studies and help train conservative politicians and policy-makers, officials said Friday.

The new campus will be exclusively under Regent's school of government.

``The Robertson School of Government has a firm commitment to produce principled graduates who are both intellectually and tactically prepared to compete and win in the public policy and political arenas,'' the dean of government, Kay Coles James, said in a statement.

James, formerly a member of Gov. George F. Allen's Cabinet and a staff member working on drug control policy for President Bush, became dean 18 months ago in a move that helped advance Regent's plans for ``principled'' education in government.

The location of the new campus is still under negotiation but should be announced soon, James' office said. The campus will contain at least five classrooms, faculty offices and at least one auditorium-type setting.

It will have its own deputy director, and two master's degree programs in politics and policy are already planned.

News of the campus came out in a fund-raising letter sent by James to Regent supporters, inviting them to an Oct. 28 farewell tribute in Washington for Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition. The dinner will benefit the school of government's scholarship program.

The Washington campus is part of Regent's effort to position itself as a leading Christian-oriented school. That goal received a boost this year when the school's founder, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, sold The Family Channel to Rupert Murdoch's Fox Kids Worldwide. Regent's share of the profit pushed its endowment into the top 100 in the nation at nearly $280 million.

Regent established its first branch campus two years ago and much farther away, at Soonshin University in Seoul, South Korea. It also has a small consulting service in Chile.

``Part of the vision always has been to go international, to be a global institution,'' said outgoing Regent President Terry Lindvall.

Washington, Lindvall said, is one of ``the sites of influence we would like to be a part of. Part of my vision, for instance, is to see us move into Hollywood and have a presence there for film and television.''

Regent has a thriving film school, which Lindvall is about to return to, that produced an Oscar-winning student film. ``We are called to be a part of our culture and society,'' Lindvall said.

``In the public sphere, what does it mean to be Christian? That's part of what we're exploring.''

With a Washington campus, Lindvall said, it will be easier to bring in featured conservative speakers who could give the university exposure on C-SPAN and other networks. Some of those speakers were not willing to make the trip to Virginia Beach, but their lectures at the new campus will be transmitted to the main Regent campus.

Paul Conway, James' deputy at Regent, said the campus will fill a need for conservative students who want to learn strategy and policy.

Other universities' programs, Conway said, ``involve members of both parties, but are not as conservative as some of our students have expressed a desire for.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Dean Kay Coles James...

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