REGENT.  In the English universities, the regents, or regentes, are members of the university who have certain peculiar duties of instruction or government.  At Cambridge, all resident Masters of Arts of less than four years’ standing and all Doctors of less than two, are Regents.  At Oxford, the period of regency is shorter.  At both universities, those of a more advanced standing, who keep their names on the college books, are called non-regents.  At Cambridge, the regents compose the upper house, and the non-regents the lower house of the Senate, or governing body.  At Oxford, the regents compose the Congregation, which confers degrees, and does the ordinary business of the University.  The regents and non-regents, collectively, compose the Convocation, which is the governing body in the last resort.—­Webster.

See SENATE.

2.  In the State of New York, the member of a corporate body which is invested with the superintendence of all the colleges, academies, and schools in the State.  This board consists of twenty-one members, who are called the Regents of the University of the State of New York.  They are appointed and removable by the legislature.  They have power to grant acts of incorporation for colleges, to visit and inspect all colleges, academies, and schools, and to make regulations for governing the same.—­Statutes of New York.

3.  At Harvard College, an officer chosen from the Faculty, whose duties are under the immediate direction of the President.  All weekly lists of absences, monitor’s bills, petitions to the Faculty for excuse of absences from the regular exercises and for making up lessons, all petitions for elective studies, the returns of the scale of merit, and returns of delinquencies and deductions by the tutors and proctors, are left with the Regent, or deposited in his office.  The Regent also informs those who petition for excuses, and for elective studies, of the decision of the Faculty in regard to their petitions.  Formerly, the Regent assisted in making out the quarter or term bills, of which he kept a record, and when students were punished by fining, he was obliged to keep an account of the fines, and the offences for which they were imposed.  Some of his duties were performed by a Freshman, who was appointed by the Faculty.—­Laws Harv.  Coll., 1814, and Regulations, 1850.

The creation of the office of Regent at Harvard College is noticed by Professor Sidney Willard.  In the year 1800 “an officer was appointed to occupy a room in one of the halls to supply the place of a Tutor, for preserving order in the rooms in his entry, and to perform the duties that had been discharged by the Butler, so far as it regarded the keeping of certain records.  He was allowed the service of a Freshman, and the offices of Butler and of Butler’s Freshman were abolished.  The title of this new officer was Regent.”—­Memories of Youth and Manhood, Vol.  II. p. 107.