Visayas State University


Visayas State University is a university located in the city of Baybay, Leyte, Philippines. The five-campus VSU has eight colleges, three institutes and one school. Located on the main campus are the College of Veterinary Medicine, College of Engineering and Technology, College of Education, College of Forestry and Environmental Science, College of Arts and Science, College of Nursing, College of Management and Economics, College of Agriculture and Food Sciences, Institute of Strategic Research and Development Studies, Institute of Tropical Ecology and Environmental Management, Institute of Human Kinetics, and the Graduate School and Special Programs.
Visayas State University is acknowledged by the Philippine Department of Tourism as a tourist destination for its diverse flora and fauna, and with Mount Pangasugan and the Camotes Sea visible from the university. VSU administration promotes the school as a "Resort University" for having resorts and providing services like bungalows to visitors.

History

The institution was founded as Baybay Agricultural School on June 2, 1924. In 1934, it was renamed as Baybay Agricultural High School, and in 1938 was named Baybay National Agricultural School through Commonwealth Act No. 313.
BNAS was renamed Visayas Agricultural College on June 19, 1960. Even though the institution offered higher education, it continued to offer secondary education as Experimental Rural High School.
It was renamed again to Visayas State College of Agriculture on May 24, 1974. The university also offered elementary education through ViSCA Foundation Elementary School.
In 1999, the school was one of four schools combined into a five-campus system. ViSCA became Leyte State University on August 11, 2001.
The promulgation of Republic Act No. 9437 dated April 27, 2007, converted the then LSU into Visayas State University. The university also offered elementary and secondary education through ViSCA Foundation Elementary School and VSU Laboratory High School respectively. In 2018, The board of directors voted to rename VSU-LHS into VSU Integrated High School.

Campuses

The university specializes in agricultural research and education, including work in jatropha propagation for the production of biofuel and development of a dwarf macapuno coconut and root-crops, particularly, sweet potato, cassava and yam. The university hosts a program on rain forestation.
Programs are available in Agro-Industry, Engineering, Information Technology, Hospitality Management, Tropical Ecology, Veterinary Medicine, Forestry, Fishery, and Food Science and Technology.
The 1,099-hectare campus hosts 193 buildings composed of academic departments, research and trainings centers, staff and student housing facilities and other structures.
The main campus offers open university system for its distance education program. Its external campuses which are located in the different parts of Leyte are the College of Fisheries, College of Industrial Technology, College of Environmental and Agricultural Technology, College of Education and Agricultural Technology.

Mount Pangasugan research

VSU is located by one of the last remaining rainforests in the Philippines. A study by Visayas State University in Baybay, Leyte found many animal species listed by the World Conservation Union in the Red List of Threatened Animals, including the Philippine tarsier, Philippine flying fox, Fischer's pygmy fruit bat. New records of the microbat, with a length of 5.5 centimeters and body weight of 10 grams, a type of skink, and two new species of the Gobiidae fishes were also found by the VSU survey.
VSU’s Natural History Museum collected 43,000 arthropod specimens from 377 families and 500 genera on Mt. Pangasugan. A new species of orchid and a tiger beetle were named in honor of past VSU president Dr. Paciencia Po-Milan, a renowned ecologist.
Other endemic species include the eagle-owl, Philippine hawk-eagle, rufous-lored kingfisher, Philippine leafbird and miniature tit-babbler and flying lemur.
The Federal Republic of Germany funded the VSU study to collect, identify, describe and document the existing species of aroids and orchids in Mt. Pangasugan. 25 species of aroids representing 12 genera were documented at elevations of up to 350 m ASL. Classified as erect ground dwellers or climbers, the most dominant aroid belong to Pothos and Epipremnum. The orchid species represent 16 genera, with the most dominant belonging to Phalaenopsis.
The Herpetofauna of Anibong, Jordan, Mt. Pangasugan Range, Leyte is a habitat to endemic species, which is so diverse and slightly distributed. The Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology identified 17 herpetofaunal species belonging to 6 families, of which eight are endemics. These endemic species include Limnonectes magnus, Platymantis corrugatus, Platymantis dorsalis, Brachymeles samarensis, Draco lineatus, Sphenomorphus jagori, Rhabdophis lineata and Trimeresurus flavomaculatus. Limnonectes magnus is already in the near-threatened category.