The Central Philippine University (also referred to as Central or CPU) is a private research university in Iloilo City, Philippines. Established in 1905 through a benevolent grant of the American industrialist and philanthropist, John D. Rockefeller, as the Jaro Industrial School and Bible School under the auspices of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, it is the first Baptist founded and second American university in the Philippines and Asia (after its sister institution, Silliman University (1901) in Dumaguete). In 1913, women were first admitted to the school and it was later converted into a junior college in 1923. In 1953, the college attained university status.