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Liberty University

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Liberty University is a Christian liberal arts university in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was founded as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971 by conservative Christian Jerry Falwell, who is also the Senior Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church.


Academics

Liberty University started a new graduate program in Communication Studies in 2004. The Master of Arts in Communication Studies accepted its first class in 2004 and was approved by the SACS accrediting body in November 2004.

U.S. News & World Report ranked Liberty University in the 4th tier of Southern Master's Universities. The magazine ranked its selectivity as "Less Selective." With tuition and annual fees of over $13,000, excluding room and board, it is the most expensive university in its class, costing over twice the average of other universities in its ranking. Liberty Univeristy started a law program in the academic year of 2005, and received provisional acredidation in early 2006.

Extracurricular Activities

Sports

The University is a member of the Division I level Big South Conference for 17 sports. The other eight members include Birmingham Southern College and Winthrop University. The University regularly competes for the Sasser Cup which is the Big South's trophy for the university which has the winningest sports program among the member institutions. Liberty has won the Sasser Cup five times, second only to Coastal Carolina, which has won it seven times.

The University gained some media attention in the winter of 2005 when the women's basketball team, the Lady Flames, made the NCAA Sweet Sixteen and were labelled a "Cinderella Team". After defeating fourth-seeded Penn State and fifth-seeded DePaul, the Flames' winning streak was halted by top seeded Louisiana State University.

Debate

Liberty is also known for its Inter-Collegiate policy debate program. Led by Dr. Brett O'Donnell, Liberty was ranked number one by the National Debate Association in the fall of 2005. This has lead to some controversy, as that ranking included results for novice debates. In varsity rankings, Liberty is twentieth.

Critics have alleged that the Liberty Debate team accumulates points by sending lots of teams to small tournaments while avoiding known debate champions like Michigan State, Berkeley, Dartmouth and Harvard, instead favoring lesser ranked opponents like Kings College, Army and Richmond.

Quiz Bowl

Liberty has also recently begun to participate in the Big South Conference Quiz Bowl competition. In their first tournament at VMI in February of 2006, the Liberty team swept the tournament, and won the competition 8-0 against the other major schools in the Big South Conference. The Liberty team was made up of students from the large Honors Program.

Notable Alumni

External links

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