The University of the Visayas was founded by the late
Don Vicente A. Gullas in 1919 as the Visayan Institute
in Cebu City. The Second World War razed to the ground
the physical facilities of the Visayan Institute at its
original site. Undaunted by adversities, Don Vicente reopened
classes in Argao, Cebu in 1946. A year later the Visayan
Institute moved back to its present site in Colon Street,
Cebu City.
As early as it’s founding, the Visayan Institute
had pioneered in educational innovations to provide equal
educational opportunities for those who have the capability
and the desire for improving themselves. It was the first
to conduct night school class for working students in
Cebu City in the 1940's. The “study now pay later
plan” had been a practice at the Visayan Institute
long before it was adopted by the Department of Education,
Culture and Sports (DECS) in the 1980's.
In 1948, the Visayan Institute was awarded a University
status, the first to become a University in Cebu and was
renamed the University of the Visayas. Since then the
expansion in its baccalaureate and postgraduate course
offerings and in its physical facilities has been phenomenal.
From an initial enrollment of 37 students the Visayan
Institute evolved into a University with an enrollment
of 20,000 distributed throughout its various campuses.
Today, its alumni have distinguished themselves in government
service and public administration, and in the professions
of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, law, engineering, architecture,
criminology, maritime and nautical, computer studies as
well as in sports and the arts.
The Gullas College of Medicine of the University of the
Visayas formally opened its doors in 1977 under permit
from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports in
response to the call for more physicians to participate
in the medical health care delivery in our country. In
effect, the establishment of the College is a dedication
to the memory of the late Don Vicente Gullas.
The Gullas College of Medicine is located in Banilad,
Mandaue City, Cebu in an atmosphere that is most conductive
to learning –quiet, well outside city limits yet
accessible by all means of land transportation, dormitories
surround the school premises
