Silliman University (also referred to as Silliman or SU) is a private research university in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, the Philippines. Established in 1901 as Silliman Institute by the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, it is the first American and Protestant founded institution of higher learning in the Philippines and in Asia.The university is named after Dr. Horace Brinsmade Silliman, a retired businessman and philanthropist from Cohoes, New York who gave the initial sum of $10,000 to start the school. Starting as an elementary school for boys, the school expanded to become a college in 1910, acquiring university status in 1938. For the first half of the 20th century, Silliman was run and operated by Americans. After the Second World War, Filipinos began to assume more administrative positions, culminating in the appointment of the university's first Filipino president in 1952.In terms of accreditation, Silliman is one of only five universities in the Philippines with "Institutional Accreditation" by the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines (FAAP). Institutional Accreditation is the highest certification that can be granted to an educational institution after an overall examination of its number of accredited programs, the quality of its facilities, services and faculty. Incidentally, Silliman also has the highest number of accredited programs in the country, twenty of which are on Level IV accreditation status, the highest level that can be granted to individual programs.Today, the university comprises ten colleges, five schools, and three institutes, enrolling over 10,000 students from the Philippines and from at least 56 foreign countries. It is registered as a National Landmark by the National Historical Institute and is one of few private higher education institutions in the Philippines that have been granted full autonomous status by the Commission on Higher Education. It is also a founding member of the Association of Christian Universities and Colleges in Asia (ACUCA) and one of the recognized institutions in the U.S. Veterans Administration's list of approved educational institutions.It maintains ties with the Central Philippine University as its sister school, an institution of higher learning founded by the Protestant Baptist Americans in 1905 in Iloilo City.

Silliman University offers programs in the early childhood, elementary, secondary, undergraduate and graduate levels. Programs in the undergraduate and graduate levels cover disciplines such as Arts, Accountancy, Agriculture, Architecture, Business Administration, Engineering, English, Filipino, Information Technology, Law, Medicine, Nursing, Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Clinical Sciences, Pharmacy Education, Teacher Education, Economics, Environmental Science, Fine Arts, Theater and Performing Arts, Foreign Languages, Geology, Journalism, Library Science, Marine Sciences, Nutrition and Dietetics, Music, Physics, Theology, Philosophy, Psychology, Public Administration and Social Work. In addition to its academic undertakings, the university is involved in research and community extension projects. Silliman's stature in the fields of environmental and marine sciences has led to its being designated by the USAID as a Center of Excellence in Coastal Resources Management.