90-Year-Old-School Making Ambitious Changes
BUIES CREEK - J.A. Campbell's school has come a long way from the one-room building where 16 Harnett County youths began studying in 1887. The metamorphosis from one-room school to the present Campbell College has taken place gradually and now, less than 90 years later, the institution is preparing for a plunge into graduate education.
The General Board of the Baptist State Convention gave its okay June 16 for a law school and for graduate programs in business administration and education. The move into graduate business education is not particularly surprising because Campbell College already offers the only undergraduate program in the state for prospective trust officers. The graduate education program also has a strong base: Campbell has graduated many teachers during the past years and there is no other college nearby offering the courses which teachers must have to upgrade their training.
But the move to legal education came as a surprise to many and some critics of the said the state didn't need another law school. Norman A. Wiggins, who became Campbell's third president in 1967, strongly disagrees. Wiggins, 51, is the helmsman of the school's push into graduate education and into business education. "I don't know how the critics arrive at the conclusion that we have too many lawyers," Wiggins said. He points out that North Carolina has fewer lawyers per 1,000 people than any other state and some of the state's 100 counties have no lawyers at all.
Wiggins bases his beliefs on more than statistics. Buies Creek is strategically located to serve Eastern North Carolina and the rest of the Southeast, he said, adding that its position is in the shadow of the state capital should ensure that its graduates will find opportunities there.
More than that, he said, the program we're going to develop is going ot be sufficiently unique to justify the college going into it. We'd like to develop a lawyer who will be more of a generalist and less a specialist. In short, a family lawyer, much like a family doctor East Carolina University's planned medical school is designed to produce.
John Fulton, 90-Year-Old School Making Ambitious Changes.
Despite the Research Triangle Institute's report, Dr. Wiggins moved forward on the plan to open a law school at Campbell College. On July 16, 1975, the General Board for the Baptist State Convention gave authorization for a law school and graduate programs in business administration and education.
Campbell College, Buies Creek, 1975.
Newspaper clippings in this guide are part of a collection titled Law School History. The articles range in dates from 1974 to 1990. Most are original; however, some are photocopies. Many are in poor condition.
The PDFs found within this guide are an accurate reflection of the collection. Not all articles are complete. While most articles contain citation information, some may contain only the text of the article.