In 1963, in the third year of the establishment of the Feng Chia College of Engineering and Business, Dean Xi-Zhe Zhang proposed that the university develop an emblem to symbolize its spirit. He asked the students and faculty of the Department of Architecture to design the emblem.
The original design featured a purple inverted triangle as the background, with an ancient Chinese coin in the center to represent the college’s business departments. In the Western Zhou Dynasty (1122-771 BC), money was in the form of sharp-edged farm implements, but later evolved into an easier to handle form of currency. This type of ancient money was referred to as “beiqiu”, with the ancient forms of these characters appearing on the coin. “Bei” is another name for currency and “qiu” has the same sound as the last name of the college’s founder: Feng-Chia Chiu.
Behind the ancient coin is a gear wheel, representing engineering and technology, which are Feng Chia’s strengths in addition to business. There are four lines radiating out from the center of the gear wheel, representing the four departments that comprised the college at the time of its establishment: civil engineering, water resources engineering, accounting and business administration.
In 1980, Feng Chia was elevated to the status of a university. The president of Feng Chia University (FCU) at that time, Ying-Ming Liao, asked the Department of Architecture to re-design the emblem based on this change. The outer triangle was replaced with the current circle. The gear wheel and the ancient coin remained to represent the College of Engineering and the College of Business, respectively. An equilateral triangle was added as it is symbolic of the field of mathematics, and the dotted sides of the triangle illustrate the intricate relationships between numbers. This is also the symbol that represents the College of Sciences.
There is a hexagonal-shaped structure below the ancient coin. Rectangles appear where the hexagon crosses the shaft of the gear wheel, symbolizing the process of handling an event or crisis. To the left is a square and to the right is a circle, representing the change from one situation to another, or in other words, the art of management, which is the focus of the School of Management Development.
Spikes of rice were added to represent fruitful learning, and the colors of the emblem were modified. The original purple background was changed to azure and the spikes of rice, which are green in nature, were made gold to represent the golden opportunities that a good education brings. The ancient coin, originally white, was made gold to complement the bright futures that are expected for this university and its students. At the top, the Chinese characters for Feng Chia College of Engineering and Business were replaced with those for Feng Chia University. On the bottom, the Chinese characters representing the school’s motto--loyalty, diligence, sincerity and perseverance--were added.
The emblem is a symbol of the university’s spirit. For FCU, which is a university that continuously seeks improvement and advancement, this emblem is an appropriate expression of that pursuit. In 2007, the school developed an eagle mascot, representing the vast space that the university has to soar, or in other words to reach further milestones of excellence.
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