The University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV or UP Visayas) is a public research university in the Philippines with campuses and facilities throughout the Visayas. A constituent university of the University of the Philippines system, it teaches management, accountancy, marketing, economics, chemistry, applied mathematics and physics, marine science education and research, fisheries, and aquaculture. It offers regional studies programs on the preservation and enrichment of the Visayan cultural heritage.
UP Visayas has two campuses—Miagao and Iloilo City — with Miagao being the main campus where the central administration offices are located.
Most of the students of the university are drawn from the Visayas and the Visayan linguistic groups. Many of the leaders of the Visayas graduated from UPV or its predecessor institutions. As of 2007, the Commission on Higher Education of the Philippines awarded four National Centers of Excellence and Development to UPV including Fisheries (UPV-Miagao), Marine Science (UPV-Miagao), and Biology (UPV-Miagao).
The University of the Philippines College of Law (U.P. Diliman) has opened a law academic extension program in U.P. Visayas - Iloilo City Campus.
History
UPV was created by merging four UP colleges: UP College of Fisheries founded in 1944; UP Cebu founded in 1918, UP Iloilo founded in 1947, and UP Tacloban founded in 1973. When the Miagao campus was established, many of the academic programs offered in the Iloilo City campus were moved there. To this day, the faculty, staff and students travel between the Iloilo City and Miagao campuses.
During the term of UP President Onofre D. Corpuz in 1975 an interdisciplinary team within the university conceived of an autonomous unit which would become an institution for fisheries and marine science education and research. The idea was fleshed out in a proposal entitled "Education Development Plan for the University of the Philippines in the Visayas", a six-volume report by the interdisciplinary team. The new university would evolve from the UP College of Iloilo and the College of Fisheries in Diliman, which would transfer to its new site in the Visayas. Funding was to come partly from a government loan, to be negotiated with the World Bank for the development of fisheries education.
On September 21, 1977, President Ferdinand E. Marcos issued Presidential Decree 1200, known as the Philippine Five-Year Development Plan (1978–1982), which provides, among others, that Region VI would be the site of the University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV) with emphasis on fisheries and marine sciences. A second UPV Project Development Team was then organized in December 1977 to review and update the plans. The development plan was approved by the UP Board of Regents on May 28, 1978. The fisheries educational loan was then re-negotiated with the World Bank inasmuch as its appraisal team had earlier favorably endorsed the development plan.
On May 31, 1979, the Board of Regents approved the establishment of the University of the Philippines in the Visayas as an autonomous unit of the University of the Philippines System with its main campus in Miagao, Iloilo. It would start with two colleges, the UP College Iloilo as its College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Fisheries as its flagship college.
Through the Sixth Educational Loan of the Philippine Government approved by the World Bank in January 1980, the development of the UPV flagship college was made possible.
On February 29, 1980, the groundbreaking of the UPV site in Miagao was held. On June 26, 1980, Executive Order No. 628 of President Ferdinand E. Marcos operationalized UPV, and Dr. Dionisia A. Rola was appointed the first Chancellor, becoming the first ever woman Chancellor in the history of UP.
The development of the site and construction of facilities began in September 1981 and was made possible through the Sixth Educational Loan. The loan of about $18 million was used for site acquisition, construction of buildings, procurement of equipment, and the transfer of the College of Fisheries personnel and other property from Diliman to Miagao.
Originally, UPV consisted of two colleges - the College of Fisheries and the College of Arts and Sciences, formerly UP College Iloilo.