Founding and Early Development visited Silliman Institute in 1909. . The University's first benefactor and namesake. is the oldest standing American structure in the Philippines. The design of the building is reminiscent of the
Stick style architecture that characterize American buildings in the late 19th century. Some of the materials used to build it were salvaged from an old theater in
New York. The present structure was built in 1909 as an addition to the original structure built in 1902, now demolished. It presently houses the university's Heritage Museum. , it was completed only in 1949. . It has also been incorporated into the provincial seal of the
Province of Negros Oriental. Silliman University was founded on August 28, 1901, as Silliman Institute by
Protestant missionaries under the Board of Foreign Missions of the
Presbyterian Church in the United States. Originally established as an elementary school for boys, the institute began operations through an initial $10,000 donation from Dr.
Horace Brinsmade Silliman, a retired businessman and Christian philanthropist from
Cohoes,
New York, who sought to establish an industrial school based on the
Hampton Institute model of Virginia. The person tasked by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions to establish the school was Dr.
David Sutherland Hibbard, a man from
Lyndon, Kansas, who, after serving as a pastor in a Presbyterian church in that locality, offered his services to the Board as missionary. Upon his arrival in the Philippines, he was commissioned, along with his wife Laura, to scout the southern part of the islands to determine the best location for the school. His original destination were
Cebu,
Zamboanga and
Iloilo. While in Cebu, he received a suggestion to make a side-trip to
Dumaguete. Recalling how the university started half a century later, Dr. Hibbard described: In 1909, Silliman Institute was visited by US Vice President
Charles W. Fairbanks. In 1910, it was awarded government recognition and the right to grant a degree. In the same year, it was incorporated under the laws of the Philippines. Women began to be admitted in 1912, with Pura Blanco as its first female student, and in 1921, the Silliman Bible School (later to become the Divinity School) was established in cooperation with the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which largely represented the
Congregational Churches of the United States. As enrollment in the institution continued to grow, a corresponding increase in faculty followed. These developments were accompanied by the adoption of a more advanced curriculum and the construction and acquisition of more permanent buildings and equipment. Of note was
Emilio Aguinaldo's decision to send his sons to Silliman Institute. By 1925, it was already recognized as "the most influential Protestant institution of higher learning" in the Philippines, according to a report submitted by the Board of Educational Survey, which was created by the
Philippine Legislature to conduct a study on all educational institutions in the country. The institute was re-incorporated in 1935, and in 1938 became the first school outside of
Manila to be granted university status.
World War II Life at the university was interrupted when
World War II broke out. On May 26, 1942, some three weeks after the fall of
Corregidor, two Japanese transports anchored in
Dumaguete. Silliman was occupied by the Japanese forces and was converted to a garrison. One of its buildings, Channon Hall, became the headquarters of the dreaded Japanese
kempeitai or military police where many Filipinos were tortured and killed. During the occupation, many members of the faculty and the student body were forced to evacuate to four localities within the province. Under the leadership of Dr.
Arthur Carson, then president of Silliman, the remaining members of the faculty continued university operations in the mountains of
Negros Oriental. This led to the formation of what was then known as the "Jungle University" in
Malabo, Valencia, one of the localities in the province. University Professor
Roy Bell became a major in the Negros Island guerrilla forces, established a Free Government, printed the Victory News, and used his radio transmitter to establish contact with the
South West Pacific Area (command). Many students, alumni, faculty members and ROTC officers joined the resistance forces, while theology professors Alvin Scaff, Proculo Rodriguez, Paul Lindholm and James McKinley "carried on pastoral and teaching duties for the resistance soldiers and civilians in guerrilla-dominated territory." The Carson and Bell families, plus other faculty members, were evacuated by the
USS Narwhal (SS-167) on February 7, 1944. American and Filipino forces liberated
Dumaguete on April 26, 1945. A few days later, the Faculty Emergency Committee took charge of the campus and began preparations for the resumption of classes and the challenge of reconstruction.
Post-war years For the first half of the century, Silliman was run and operated by Americans. After the Second World War and until the early 1950s, efforts toward the Filipinization of the university administration began to surface. Filipino faculty members began to assume significant positions and, as more of them took on administrative roles, the board of trustees elected the university's first Filipino president, Dr. Leopoldo T. Ruiz, on August 26, 1952. He officially took office in April 1953. A Silliman alumnus (A.B. 1916) and a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (B.A. 1920), Ruiz had an extensive experience in higher education and foreign service. Before his appointment, he pursued graduate studies in sociology at
Columbia and
Yale, earning an M.A. (1924) from the former, and a Ph.D. (1942) from the
University of Southern California. In the same decade as Ruiz's appointment, the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia (UBCHEA), an interdenominational group based in
New York, assumed responsibility for channeling all church aid to Silliman. The United Board is an international organization supported by ten Protestant mission boards. The 1960s saw a decreasing American representation in the faculty and the engagement of new batch of professors of other nationalities. During this time, faculty members of South Korean, British, Scottish, German, Dutch and of Indonesian nationalities, among others also joined the faculty. By 1970, the Divinity School was the most international among academic units on campus. Up to most recent times, however, American and foreign visiting professors are still assigned in specialized areas. In the early 1960s and toward the beginning of the Martial Law years, the university embarked on a "Build a Greater Silliman" program. This is in response to the growing student population and the corresponding need for additional facilities. With significant support from many donors, mostly alumni and entities from abroad, the program led to the construction of more academic buildings, dormitories, faculty housing units, and other facilities. These included the now-famous Luce Auditorium which was funded largely by the Henry Luce Foundation; the Science Complex, equipped with an observatory on top of the third floor; the Engineering Complex; and the Silliman University Medical Center.
Martial law era When
Martial Law was declared in 1972, Silliman was closed down by the government. It was one of the first two universities to be closed, and one of the last to be reopened. On the morning of September 23, 1972 some faculty members and many students were rounded up by the local Philippine Constabulary (now the
Philippine National Police), some of whom were detained for one to six months. Many offices of the university, including the
Weekly Sillimanian, the student paper, were raided by the PC. Journalist
Crispin Maslog, who was teaching in the university at the time, recalls that Marcos himself had complained about instances where members of the political opposition such as Senator
Jovito Salonga and Senator
Juan Liwag were invited to speak at the university. produced a
dog vaccine that gave a three-year immunity from
rabies, making it the first and only laboratory to produce a
rabies vaccine with long-term immunity in the whole of
Southeast Asia. The development of the vaccine resulted in the elimination of rabies in many parts of the
Visayas and
Mindanao Islands and was later on used by other countries in their fight against rabies conducted in collaboration with the
World Health Organization.
1980s to recent history The 1980s saw the restoration of the university's Student Government and the approval of its constitution. After years of suppression by the
Marcos regime, students were again allowed to organize in 1981. The decade also witnessed the 100% board exam ratings of the Electrical Engineering, Nursing and Accountancy programs and the installation of solar-powered light posts in the campus in the years 1986 and 1989 respectively. Owing to its rich history, the university was declared as a
National Historical Landmark by the
National Historical Institute on June 19, 2002. A marker stating this declaration was installed inside the campus on September 23, 2022. Silliman is one of few private higher educational institutions in the country with full autonomous status granted by the
Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the same government agency that recognized some of its programs as Centers of Excellence and Centers of Development. ==Campus==