Central Philippine University
Central Philippine University is a private Protestant research university in Iloilo City, Philippines. Established in 1905 through a grant from the American industrialist and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, as the Jaro Industrial School and Bible School under the supervision of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, it is "the first Baptist and the second American and Protestant-founded university in the Philippines and in Asia".
The university pioneered nursing education in the Philippines through the establishment of the Union Mission Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1906, the first nursing school in the Philippines. It also established the first student government in Southeast Asia, the CPU Republic ; the first government-recognized agricultural school outside of Luzon, the CPU College of Agriculture, Resources and Environmental Sciences; the first Baptist and second Protestant theological seminary in the country, the CPU College of Theology, and the first Protestant and American hospital in the Philippines, the CPU–Iloilo Mission Hospital.
The university has been granted full autonomy status by the Commission on Higher Education, the same government agency that recognized its academic programs as National Centers of Excellence in Agriculture and Business Administration, and as National Centers of Development in Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, and Teacher Education. It is also an ISO Certified Institution.
Central has been recognized globally, ranking among the top universities in the Philippines and worldwide by two notable international university ranking agencies, Quacquarelli Symonds and Times Higher Education. It has also been ranked by the World University Ranking for Innovations. In addition, AppliedHE has recognized Central as one of the top private universities in Southeast Asia.
CPU's main campus is a Registered Cultural Property by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and a Marked Historical Site by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines. The Hinilawod Epic Chant Recordings, housed at the university's Henry Luce III Library, has been inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.
At present, the university is consist of eighteen schools and colleges offering academic programs from basic education up to baccalaureate and graduate studies. In tertiary education level, it offers courses in Agriculture and Environmental Sciencess, Accounting and Business Administration, Biology and Chemistry, Computer Studies, Engineering, Hospitality and Tourism Management, Law, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Library Science, Mass Communication, Medical Laboratory Science, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Political Science, Public Administration, Psychology, Teacher Education, and Theology.
The university administers the Fortress College in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental and maintains overseas academic programs with Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration in Vietnam.
Central's alumni include Filipino senators, congressmen, and legal luminaries; National Artists of the Philippines; laureates of notable awards like Ramon Magsaysay Award and Rolex Award for Enterprise; presidential cabinet members, military officials; provincial governors and city mayors; and business tycoons.
History
Incorporation and founding
In the early 20th century when the Philippines was opened to the American Protestant missionaries after the Philippines was ceded by Spain to the United States through the 1898 Treaty of Paris after the Spanish–American War, a comity agreement by the Protestant American churches was established that the Philippine islands will be divided into mission territories, thus the Western Visayan region went to the jurisdiction of the Baptists.The origins of Central Philippine University dates back in 1901 when the American Northern Baptists, through its foreign mission board, the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, laid a plan to establish mission schools following the comity agreement of the division of the islands for the evangelical mission and through a benevolent grant given by John D. Rockefeller, an American industrialist and philanthropist. Rockefeller himself was a devoted Northern Baptist with numerous church related philanthropy works throughout his life, that is why he gave a grant to the Northern Baptists that resulted in the establishment of Central.
On the other hand, in 1901 also, four years before the founding of Central in 1905, alongside when the American Baptists came in Iloilo, the Presbyterians came and they established the Union Mission Hospital under the Presbyterian Church in the United States by Joseph Andrew Hall, it is the first Protestant and American hospital in the Philippines. Since the hospital's founding, Presbyterians worked closely with the Baptists for the operation of the hospital. Following the years since its founding, in 1925, its administration was eventually transferred to the Baptists who also bought the land in the City of Jaro where the hospital now stands. The hospital was later renamed to Iloilo Mission Hospital in 1932. The hospital predates the schools founding by four years. It also serves since then as the hospital of Central. The hospital pioneered the Nursing education in the Philippines when it established the Union Mission Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1906. The school also produced the first graduate nurses in the country.
Then in 1903, there will be two schools that will be established by the mission: an industrial school for boys and a Bible school to train pastors and other Christian workers was incorporated. Later, it was voted on December 2, 1904, to finally establish the two schools. The task to found both schools was given to William O. Valentine, an American missionary, who became the first principal and president with the help of the other co-founders. Valentine was in the service of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, where he first ministered as a missionary in Burma, first in Rangoon, then in Mandalay, where he became the principal of the Baptist Mission High School for Boys in 1895. The new mission was given to him by the mission society in 1903. During his eighth year in Burma he suffered severe sunstroke and returned to America for treatment. There he met his future wife, nurse Ina Jane Van Allen. Valentine and Van Allen were married in 1903 and the couple left for his new appointment in Iloilo in the Philippines.
The establishment of the Baptist Missionary Training School and the Jaro Industrial School is associated with the first Baptist church in the Philippine Islands, the Jaro Evangelical Church, which was established on February 28, 1900, by the Northern American Baptists also, now the American Baptist Churches. On June 1, 1905, the Bible School opened in the home of the Valentines under the auspices of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society from the United States along with other missionaries that are considered as co-founders. There were 12 pupils with some "Bible Women" who attended as auditors.
The benevolent grant given by the industrialist and oil magnate John D. Rockefeller was used to provide the school the facilities during the school's establishment along with the industrial school and to purchase a 24-hectare piece of land in the City of Jaro where Central's main campus is located at present.
In the fall of 1905, the Jaro Industrial School was opened as a free vocational boarding school for poor boys. The first class consisted of 20 boys who worked four hours a day to pay their tuition, room and board, and spent four hours in the classroom. One of the school's innovations was the adoption of student self-government, the first in the South East Asia, known today as Central Philippine University Republic, which is modeled on American civil government. Dr. William Orison Valentine, worked for its incorporation and recognition by the Philippine government.
File:WO Valentine.jpg|right|180px|thumb|The Reverend William Valentine, the founder and first president of Central
A year later when Jaro Industrial School was established, one of the school's innovations was the adoption of student self-government which is modeled on American civil government, the Jaro Industrial School Republic. The Republic continues to this day as the Central Philippine University Republic. It still holds the distinction as the oldest student governing body in South East Asia. The original purpose of the founding of the industrial school for boys was quoted a century later in 2005 during the centennial celebrations of the university:
"The original purpose of the school ''was to provide opportunity for poor Filipino boys to receive a good Christian education by working their way through school. Actual work experience and earnest study of the Bible were the core of the curriculum."
Later, the leadership of the Bible School was turned over to the Reverend Henry Munger, who conducted classes off campus. In 1907, Reverend William Valentine became and tenured again as head of the Jaro Industrial School. By 1907 during his term, there were 300 boys working an active farm and in various trades. All of these students were required to live on campus. In 1907 also, the Bible School split off under a separate principal, Dr. Eric Lund. Classes were held at the Mission Press building where Lund was doing his Scripture translation work.
In 1910, independent student media at the Jaro Industrial School created the first official student publication, The Hoe. It is now one of the oldest student publications in the Philippines.
In 1912, Dr. Lund left the Baptist Missionary Training School and it was closed. Following that year, in 1913, Dr. Valentine's objectives were realized and in the same year the Jaro Industrial School also admitted its first female student; it was fully incorporated then by the Philippine government and enrolled 740 students. Then in 1915, Jaro Industrial School opened its first high school program, starting with first and second year classes, adding third and fourth year classes in 1920. As both two schools were founded by the Northern American Baptists from the American Baptist Churches, ordination for women is affirmed that resulted and eventually in 1917, the Jaro Industrial School elected its first female head and Principal'', Mary J. Thomas, who tenured as a principal of the Jaro Industrial School from 1917 to 1918. The Baptist Missionary Training School later, however, was reopened in 1913 by Rev. Alton Bigelow. It was under Rev. Alton Bigelow's leadership that the Bible School began to have a definite direction in its development. In 1921, the following year after the Jaro Industrial School added fourth year high school classes, the school graduated its first high school batch.
File:Iloilo Mission Hospital Main Hall.jpg|240px|thumb|right|The Central Philippine University–Iloilo Mission Hospital Main Hall in its new location in 1931 in the City of Jaro. Founded in 1901 by Presbyterian missionary doctor Joseph Andrew Hall, it is the first American and Protestant hospital in the Philippines.
The first Board of Trustees which was formed a year earlier before the founding of the two schools, is composed of five members from the mission conference which are selected by the mission conference in annual session. They remained American in composition until prior to the conversion of the Jaro Industrial School as a junior college. In the early years of the school's operation, building up qualified faculty and staff had been a great challenge. Some missionaries gave part-time service and Dr. David S. Hibbard, founder of the Silliman Institute, now Silliman University, also provided Filipino instructors who had trained at Silliman Institute.
To accommodate the need for tertiary education in the area, a junior college was opened in 1923 and the name of the school was changed to Central Philippine College. In April of the following year, the Baptist Missionary Training School became an organic part of the junior college. The senior college opened in 1936 and by 1940 five degrees were offered: Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Theology and Bachelor of Religious Education.
When the junior college became a senior college in 1936, the College of Engineering was also established.
In 1938, Baptist Missionary Training School for women which was established independently on October 20, 1905, became part of the theology department of the college. In the same year also, students and interested sectors of the school began to press for the opening of a law school. Finally, on March 18, 1939, the board of trustees voted to apply for a permit to offer the first two years of the law course. It opened in the school year 1939–1940. Attorney Pablo Oro, who had been one of the leaders in urging this move and in seeking patrons to help develop the law library, was given the responsibility for developing the program. Pablo Oro, a member of the Philippine Bar, was a graduate of Silliman University and of the University of Manila College of Law.
On September 19, 1931, the Union Mission Hospital started admitting and treating patients at its present location on Mission Road. The hospital plant occupied a lot of 29,283 meters or approximately 3 hectares in area. On October 21, 1931, became a joyous day. The new relocated hospital was dedicated with its founder, Dr. Joseph Andrew Hall came all the way from Tacloban City, Leyte, as the guest of honor on the said momentous occasion. Dr. Precy Grigg lost no time in developing the new hospital's buildings and its surroundings. On what used to be a deep rice field and swampy place was a green lawn and rose garden surrounding the new imposing and neat-looking concrete hospital. After office hours, Dr. Grigg loved to work on landscaping the surroundings with plants secured from the islands of Negros and Panay.
On March 5, 1932, Union Mission Hospital became the Iloilo Mission Hospital. Likewise the training school was renamed Iloilo Mission Hospital Training School for Nurses. The hospital onwards continued to grow. It drew students from many parts of the Philippine islands who came to apply for admission to the training school for nurses.