Vidal A. Tan

Vidal A. Tan was part of the 1913 batch of pensionados and was sent to Cornell University, where he completed his undergraduate studies in civil engineering and subsequently earned a master’s degree from the same institution. In 1939, he was appointed the first Filipino dean of the University of the Philippines College of Engineering. In his term as the 8th UP President, two religious structures on the UP Diliman campus were established: the Church of the Risen Lord and the Parish of the Holy Sacrifice. In recognition of his contributions to the humanities, President Carlos Garcia conferred on him the Presidential Medal of Merit in 1958. As of 2020, the UP National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development (NISMED) building on the Diliman campus bears his name as Vidal A. Tan Hall.