The Legal Studies discipline at Bryant University which presently offers a minor to over 300 students has existed for several decades at the University. Historically, this discipline has been viewed as offering a selection of courses which complement a student's major in one of the Business Departments and as offering the AACSB required course entitled The Legal Environment of Business. In the early to mid 1990s, the University determined to strengthen the Legal Studies discipline as a liberal arts discipline; the two existing upper level courses namely Markets and the Law and The Law of Financial Institutions were redesigned to explore the substantive material in terms of how it connected with other social sciences pertaining to an understanding of society.
In the late 1990s and into the 2000s several new Legal Studies faculty were hired who offered a variety of new courses with a liberal arts orientation. The study of law at Bryant University follows a humanistic tradition. Students are encouraged to reflect on the fundamental values and principles which underlie the law and its policies. In 2001 the Legal Studies faculty developed a mission for the discipline, which focuses on the relationship between law and morality to guide its curriculum development.
The commitment of Bryant students to the area of legal studies is attributable to two factors, primarily the students recognize that Legal Studies courses help develop their thought and reasoning processes as well as offering them the skills to communicate clearly both in writing and in oral presentation. The establishment of the Legal Studies Society with an active membership of over 100 students and the geometric increase in the number of Bryant students applying to law school are strong evidence of the rise in interest in "legals" at Bryant University.
Recognizing the academic strength of our students and their obvious interest for legal studies classes, the legal studies faculty is developing a more expanded program for students: we are proposing to offer a multifaceted curriculum entitled Law, Society and Ethical Studies wherein the study of law is developed within the liberal arts framework drawing closely upon historical, sociological, political, economic, psychological and literary perspectives. The goal of the curriculum would be to emphasize the reciprocal relationship between law and morality in order to view law as socially transformative.