Regent University was founded in 1977 as CBN University by Pat Robertson, who currently holds the title of Chancellor of Regent University.The school, although founded in 1977, did not conduct its first classes until the fall of 1978, in leased classroom space in Chesapeake,
Virginia. The first students were all enrolled in what is now the School of Communication & the Arts. Its first students
graduated in May 1980; the School of Education opened the following October. At the same
time, CBN University opened the first building on its current Virginia Beach campus.The school proceeded to open its schools of business, divinity, government, and law by the mid-1980s. In 1984, CBN University received accreditation from the Southern Association of
Colleges and Schools; later in the decade, it started a distance education program.In January 1990, the school changed its name to Regent University. Five years later,
Regent began outreach programs geared to teachers in the Washington, D.C. area, which eventually led to the opening of its Alexandria campus.
In 2000, Regent began an undergraduate degree-completion program under the auspices of a
new program, the Center for Professional Studies, which became Regent Undergrad in the fall of 2004.