Villaruz took oath last Jan 25 before Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairperson J. Prospero E. de Vera III at the WVSU Cultural Center in La Paz, Iloilo City. 

Villaruz noted that, during his first term, the university was able to introduce four new programs – juris doctor, chemistry, a master’s program in education teaching in challenged areas, and a Doctor for Dental Medicine program.

This is on top of the current programs for Doctor of Medicine, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and Master of Arts in Nursing with majors in Nursing Administration and Nursing Education, among others, the university is offering and is renowned for.

This program, formulated by the CHED Technical Panel for Medicine that he leads, will shorten the academic to internship journey of the soon-to-be physicians by two years and is to be implemented for a selected few SUCs only in the country.

He also noted various infrastructure projects to support the learning development agenda for the students.

These include the P140-million project for the expansion of the College of Medicine to increase its skills laboratory and carrying capacity and the almost completed P92-million College of Dentistry building.

“And with the completion of the 15-storey medical arts and specialty center, a surge of patients seeking care will dramatically increase, requiring us to propose an increase in bed capacity, and hopefully, this will be achieved before I end my term,” he added.

Apart from this, his administration will continue to lobby for the required staffing of the Cancer Center.

Since the pandemic, the medical center has also been able to open a Residency training program in Family and Community Medicine, while its proposed training programs in Neurology and Urology are set to commence following the approval of the university’s board of regents.

With this, the university president noted that the next four years of his administration will be vital as they are about “to pull the last leg of our transformation to become a research university.”

He added that they already have established all necessary policy support and identified streamlined strategies to speed up the overall process.

“The University will continue to force itself towards internationalization, market, and brand itself as a globally recognized research university. We will aggressively work towards generating more funds to ensure our operational viability,” Villaruz underscored.

The university will also strengthen its clinical research programs to support its research productivity and engagements through the advanced research laboratory of its College of Medicine accompanied with the molecular and genome laboratory of the WVSU Medical Center.

These, he assured the whole “taga-West” community as he renewed his mandate that will determine the road WVSU will be taking in the coming years.