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After strategy planning meetings, the university’s academic development objectives for the 2018–2022 period, also known as ISHARP, were established. The college also integrated its unique features with the university’s development objectives to form the college’s own objectives.

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Goal 1:I  - Immersing in cultivating students’ intelligent innovation capabilities of i+Xi and implementing university

                      social responsibilities

Goal 2:S - Sustaining the focus on cultivating research talents in business innovation and sustainable development

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Goal 3:H - Hankering students’ international mobility and building an international cooperative environment

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Goal 4:A - Achieving integration of academia and industry, becoming the preferred partner for industry collaboration

                       and talent cultivation

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Goal 5:R - Raising students’ career planning and enhancing their employment competitiveness

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Goal 6:P - Promoting key construction and improving financial and human resource systems 

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The purpose of these six educational objectives is to cultivate talents with core competencies such as employability, international mobility, and cross-disciplinary learning ability. This will enable students to possess sufficient capabilities to assist in the innovation transformation and sustainable development of enterprises upon graduation.

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• Goal 1:Immersing in cultivating students’ intelligent innovation capabilities of i+Xi and implementing university social responsibilities​

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• Cultivating students’ foundational skills, problem-solving abilities, and humanistic literacy  

   

Our university has adopted the CDIO framework from MIT as well as designed and improved the existing outcome-based education model. We also draw inspiration from Design Thinking at Stanford University, changing the teaching method and learning approach. We deepen and reorganize the course content and learning framework and plan to cultivate communication skills, basic knowledge, programming, sustainable development concepts, media utilization, and problem-solving abilities.

The fundamental courses include economics, accounting, statistics, and management. By hosting a professional empowerment group for teaching staff, linking up with new industry knowledge, and offering online self-directed learning courses, we enhance students’ learning effectiveness.

To enable students’ self-directed learning, our college has created massive open online course (MOOC) videos for the contents and important examples from accounting and economics courses. Students can preview the videos before class, review them after class, and practice exercises independently at their own pace. They can also refer to the teaching assistants’ problem-solving videos if they encounter difficulties. Students are willing to accept the combination of online and offline courses, which can improve their learning efficiency.

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• Implementing the teaching model with the contents of MIT CDIO and Stanford Design Thinking to cultivate students’ innovative and sustainable management skills from concept to practice

 

In 2014, Feng Chia University introduced MIT’s innovative teaching method, the engineering educational mode of CDIO, and formally implemented it in 2017. The CDIO approach caters to an educational model that emphasizes the real-world context and practice, based upon which students with diverse specialties team up to identify the problem, design potential and feasible solutions, implement solutions, and operate solutions. We are dedicated to not only professional training, but also problem-based learning in order to enhance students’ employment competitiveness. Fusing learning into career readiness has become a critical issue for universities as university education is no longer simply knowledge transferring and lecturing. The curriculum design must enable students to keep up to date with the industrial demands for talents and real problem-solving processes, which require students to undergo the iterative stages of CDIO. This is believed to be the best way to achieve these goals.

 

• Specifically, in the design of the CDIO curriculum, Feng Chia University launched the Freshman Project in the freshman year for the conceive and design concepts of CDIO. Each department introduces its course map as well as fundamental topics to students so that they can get the whole picture of their studies. Learning Innovation Tools is a compulsory course for freshmen in which students learn at least five approaches to creative thinking, such as brainstorming, six thinking hats, and the Mandala chart. Moreover, in the course Learning in Special Topics, students are guided to learn how to execute a special-topic project. Specifically, a project with a special topic often consists of multiple students collaborating as a team. Subsequently, as sophomores and juniors, students take Deep Bowl courses according to their domains. In these courses, we work to deepen students’ capability to implement and operate concepts in solving real problems. From their third year to senior year, students must take a capstone course by completing a cross-semester Graduation Project in which they experience a complete round of CDIO within one year.

 

• Promoting innovative academic systems and teaching models and providing flexible and diverse interdisciplinary learning paths (a+b)

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To cultivate students as future talents demanded by industries and societies, the university has been a pioneer in creating a mix-and-match approach for different majors, breaking the framework of departments and allowing students to master their learning autonomy. Students can create their own learning modules by taking interdisciplinary and cross-departmental courses through the innovative academic system, such as minors, second majors and “A Department in and B Department out,” which refers to students being able to enter Feng Chia University as a student in one department and subsequently graduate from a second department in a similar field. Put differently, they should be departments in the same college/school, rather than departments across colleges.

To encourage students to learn interdisciplinary expertise, one of the school’s innovative academic systems is to promote A Department + B Department interdisciplinary expertise. In the educational system, students—with the same graduation credit requirement—can opt for two minors (or one minor and one professional series of courses) in addition to their original major. In other words, students can determine their learning fields according to their personal interests and future career requirements. They are free to mix and match their curriculum module with learning autonomy. For instance, a student who majors in business administration could minor in statistics and foreign languages in order to enjoy more future career possibilities. Special courses are offered in each field based upon future industrial trends and demands so that students can opt for interdisciplinary expertise that might add value to their competitiveness. As long as they take 3 courses in a single field, they can acquire a micro-learning program certification.

 

• Building innovative and sustainable management capabilities for students to meet the needs of industrial upgrading and social transformation.

 

Facing the future global digital competition, many countries are attaching importance to the learning of programming, cultivating students with the key abilities needed in the future technological world. Practical projects are applied to solve sustainability issues, marked according to the United Nations’ SDGs. In combination with professional courses offered by the college departments, this cultivates students’ smart application of “I” intelligence.

In this era of rapid changes in information and technology, students need many skills to face future competition. To equip students with the abilities needed for future workplaces and life, our college offers a Smart Operations course aimed at cultivating students’ innovative and intelligent use of technology to assist in business operations. The course is developed in collaboration with the publicly traded company 7-Eleven, with the purpose of optimizing the app functions to enhance the business performance of 7-Eleven food courts located inside Tung’s Taichung MetroHarbor Hospital. The course is taught by both instructors and business experts. On one hand, students learn about the operation model and content of convenience stores; on the other hand, they understand how consumers use apps and how to attract consumers to consume more. The course further leads students on field trips to observe and understand real business operations. Upon returning to the classroom, students brainstorm feasible ways to improve the business model. Students later write a Linebot program which is handed over to the stores for actual use. After six months of use, according to 7-Eleven’s explanation, the optimization of operations has improved the store’s performance by 30% compared to the same period last year. This course integrates current smart technology into business and uses CDIO and Design Thinking educational and learning models, achieving a win–win effect of improving both student abilities and enterprise performance.

In order to enhance students’ understanding and practice of ESG and achieve the SDGs, COB/COF has launched a credit program on corporate sustainable development. Considering the course Sustainable Tourism and Ecotourism as an example, the instructor first teaches students about the relationship among ESG, tourism and ecology. Then the instructor lead student on field trips to see the local regeneration in Taichung's old city district and Sun Moon Lake Antique Assam Tea Farm and energy-saving and carbon reduction measures at the Mingtan Power Plant. This course will require students to team up to design a low-carbon travel itinerary as final reports.

 

• Goal 2: Sustaining focus on cultivating research talents in business innovation and sustainable development

Considering the need for industry–academia collaboration to promote regional development, our university focuses on the unique characteristics and needs of the surrounding areas, such as the Central Taiwan Science Park, The Taichung City Precision Machinery Innovation Technology Park, Shuinan Trade and Economic Park, and neighboring counties and cities. We actively share ideas and knowledge and create new knowledge with other universities, industries, and the community. By integrating the resources from various sectors, we cultivate talents in smart business innovation and sustainable development research, achieving a win–win–win situation of sustainable campus management, industry, and society.

 

• To respond to the development of intelligent technology in the future and cultivate students’ ability of applying business intelligence and creating new business models, the college established a business innovation and smart operation center, where a complete learning infrastructure along with smart teaching devices has been built. The center also plans a systematic curriculum with real practice for undergraduates and graduates. Specifically, the three fundamental courses for undergraduates are Intelligence Technology and Business Innovation, Intelligence Technology and Management Application, and Social Innovation and Information Technology Application. Seniors and graduates have access to another eight courses: Industrial Innovation Forum, Industry Tour, New Business Model, Smart Technology, Global Business Trends, Smart Operations, Innovative Management in Costs and Financial Strategy, and Business Innovation Topics.

 

• To support these project-based courses, the college also set up faculty and student communities and organized workshops and speeches for advanced learning and interaction. With external stakeholders’ participation, the college introduces industry practice and technological instruments into the curriculum, based upon which students from different fields are able to make use of what they learn in solving real problems in real contexts. Specifically, they are able to probe current business and social issues through field visits, dialogues with practitioners, and project-based models. Furthermore, we encourage students to propose practical solutions and business models that bring forth economic and social value. To enhance students’ expertise and capabilities required for intelligent operations, the college launched courses such as Smart Technology and Smart Operation, in which students need to learn intelligent technologies and data analytics for decision-making. The college also encourages students to participate in both domestic and international competitions.

 

• Regarding the Fintech program in financial specialty, a diversified curriculum plan for the financial technology minor module course has been launched. Students are required to complete 20 credits to have the financial technology minor expertise listed on their diplomas, increasing their employability as well as core capabilities. Fintech has brought forth changes and innovations in the global financial industry, affecting industries such as banking, insurance, and securities. The finance specialty field is linked to industrial resources. Since the fall 2020 semester, it has developed an interdisciplinary financial technology minor module, industry–academia co-lectured financial innovation courses, and financial innovation microcredits issued and verified by enterprises. With the introduction of iTools, the curriculum trains students to apply their financial professions in practices and cultivates students’ ability to seamlessly connect to future careers as a new type of financial talents equipped with professional expertise in financial technology and smart applications.

 

• Encouraging research talent to expand research and teaching innovation momentum

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In addition to formulating academic rewards that balance resource input and output, encouraging research groups and new teachers to engage in research, the Broadbanding Implementation Fundamentals for Elite Co-option is promoted to provide flexible salary-related measures for specially talented individuals. By actively recruiting domestic and foreign scholars and experts as well as appointing visiting professors, the university continuously retains specially talented individuals to expand research resources and enhance the quality of researchers. A research environment with a focus on both basics and applications is established to promote academic research growth and stimulate research talent to expand R&D capacity. Ongoing subsidies are provided for teachers to study and conduct research abroad, and internationally renowned scholars and professors are appointed to conduct short-term lectures at the university to improve teaching quality, diversify teaching staff and courses, and achieve the goal of enhancing the overall teaching quality.

 

• Goal 3: Hankering students’ international mobility and building an international cooperative environment

 

• According to the 2020 survey by Global Views Monthly, Feng Chia University is one of the best universities in Taiwan, and its degree of internationalization is second only to National Taiwan University. In response to the trend of global exchanges, the university promotes the Flying Miles Plan to enhance students’ international mobility by visiting partner universities and expanding their global vision. We encourage students to go beyond Taiwan to experience studying abroad and enrich their university life. They can also register for language courses offered by the Foreign Language Center to enhance their language proficiency. Due to the COVID-19 impact, Feng Chia University hosted an online streaming of International Study Week that comprised an international study course forum, a going-abroad experience-sharing forum, an international study application forum, and an international scholarship forum. In total, 204 students registered and attended via Microsoft Teams.

 

• As for the inbound students, Feng Chia University set up an Offshore Students Counseling Committee to provide guidance for adapting to the local life, accessing school resources, dealing with study issues, and finding an internship. Our Office of Student Affairs also offers counseling services on campus safety, mental issues, and even future careers. In addition, we have international student associations that organize various types of activities, workshops, and events for further interaction as well as cohesiveness.

 

• Each year the university organizes the International Summer School and Cross-Strait Summer United University, which includes Feng Chia University, Tongji University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Shih Hsin University. Students from all over the world participate in the school’s international summer program as an exchange platform. We offer two courses, Cross-Border Social Innovation Practice and Chinese Communication, with content including marketing Taiwanese culture and understanding Taiwanese Indigenous culture by making full use of the high-quality teaching resources of the four universities across the strait. Students in the summer program are required to take elective courses in general education via the interdisciplinary learning mode in order to cultivate their skills and knowledge as professionals, promote teamwork, and implement social practices and Indigenous innovativeness. Since 2014, six sessions of the summer program have been held, with more than 2,000 students participating. The exciting and rich course content has been warmly echoed and affirmed by the students.

 

• Continuously strengthening international student exchange and learning, through the establishment of the RMIT–FCU 2+2 Bachelor’s Program in Business and Innovation from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, the SJSU–FCU 2+2 Bachelor’s Program in Business Analytics from San Jose State University, and the Bachelor’s Program of International Business Administration in English, providing students with opportunities to study in multiple countries, enhancing their awareness of diverse cultures and professional knowledge, and improving their international mobility.

 

• The university’s overseas cooperative schools include 33 exchange countries worldwide, including 30 in the Americas, 57 in Europe, 186 in Asia, and 6 in Oceania. A total of 279 universities have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the exchange and overseas joint-dual degree. For the joint-dual degree, the schools that have signed the joint-dual bachelor’s and joint-dual master’s degree contracts span four continents. 

 

• Our college is committed to creating an international environment in terms of both quality and quantity, deepening the teaching and curriculum of all-English courses, and organizing exchange activities for teachers teaching in English as a platform for sharing teaching experiences and enhancing students’ motivation for learning to achieve good learning outcomes. We have also established a teacher-sharing platform for mutual learning. We offer professional courses in English for undergraduate students, and young and new teachers are invited to teach in English. Our college actively collaborates with the University of Adelaide in Australia, which provides complete and real-time online teaching content, and we fully subsidize training for our teachers to teach in English.

 

• Goal 4：Achieving integration of academia and industry, becoming the preferred partner for industry collaboration and talent cultivation

From pre-employment to on-the-job training, the university has designed a blueprint for industry talent learning. Through in-depth cultivation of industries, the university meets the talent needs of nearby science parks, precision machinery industrial parks, Taichung industrial zone, and Shui Nan economic and trade park, providing employees with on-the-job training courses and sustaining talent development.

We have created a comprehensive talent development blueprint for industry professionals from pre-employment to in-service training. By deepening our engagement with the industry, we aim to meet the talent demands of enterprises in and around the Central Taiwan Science Park, Taichung City Precision Machinery Innovation Technology Park, Taichung Industrial Park Service Center, and Shuinan Trade and Economic Park (STEP). We provide in-service training programs for employees to sustain talent development.

 

• The university signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Yuanta Financial Holdings in April 2020 to create an interdisciplinary future financial technology experimental field and cultivate financial talents. The highlight of the cooperation project is the establishment of the Yuanta/Feng Chia Future Financial Laboratory, through cross-college and interdisciplinary cooperation, to provide participating students with financial, quantitative trading, program trading system development, and even consumer-centric digital financial services training relevant to design methods. Meanwhile, the university launched a credited program lectured together by the professional faculty members of the university and the outstanding teachers of Yuanta Financial Holdings. In the program, we not only foster students’ abilities to acquire their financial licenses, but also provide internship and future employment opportunities for well-performing students, bridging students’ learning and their future careers. In addition, relying upon Yuanta Financial Holdings’ overall layout strategy in Southeast Asia together with the internationalization of the college and its resources, Yuanta Financial Holdings and Feng Chia University jointly promote the ASEAN Financial Talent Cultivation Program to expand the global talent pool of Yuanta Financial Holdings’ subsidiaries.

 

• The college cooperated with Sinyi Realty Inc. to organize a virtual symposium on May 28, 2021, for campus recruitment with multiple open full-time and part-time positions, including realty managers, UI interface designers and interns, artificial intelligence research and development team members, new framework development interns, UX user experience designers, platform management planners, data analyzers, secretary administrators, and business assistants. At least 7 mid-level managers and senior supervisors from Sinyi Realty participated in the activity. Students from different departments registered for this symposium. Two virtual interactive meetings proceeded at the same time for students with full-time and part-time needs, enabling students to explore their career interests based upon personalities and capabilities and have advanced conversations with practitioners. 

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• The Global Village of Business Education and Industrial Cooperation Center of the college is devoted to serving as an interdisciplinary platform and promoting academia–industry cooperation. For example, in October 2019, we organized a Business Innovation Hackathon in conjunction with the College of Information and Electrical Engineering. The 7-11 of Uni-President and Sinyi Realty Inc. were invited not only to give tasks and challenges, but also to interact with the participants from different fields. Participants needed to propose feasible business solutions by leveraging current technologies. Their efforts and outcomes received great approvals from the two companies for future commercialization and economic value. The cooperation with Uni-President has continued since 2019. In 2021, our student teams further proposed solutions to improve the sales growth of one of Uni-President’s service areas in Taichung.

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• Goal 5：Raising students’ career planning and enhancing their employment competitiveness 

We effectively organize alumni resources and industry cluster resources near science parks and industrial zones and use innovative teaching methods to enable students to respond effectively to industrial upgrading and social transformation. We provide flexible and diverse internship opportunities to help students integrate theory and practice, strengthen their competitiveness in employment, and integrate UCAN scales, internship experience evaluation, and enterprise satisfaction surveys to provide feedback for occupational curriculum design and strengthen the development of employability skills. We expand students’ learning horizons and development opportunities, continuously explore overseas internship opportunities, actively manage friendly enterprises, and collaborate with industry–academia alliances to provide more professional internship opportunities.

To assist students in adapting to college life, we assign class learning mentors to strengthen the relationship between teaching and learning. Class learning mentors are assigned in the freshman year and sophomore year and are mainly the teachers who teach the required courses of that class. Class learning mentors are responsible for the counseling work, university resources utilization, directed learning, and learning ability improvement of students. Starting in the junior year, students are encouraged to choose their own mentors to promote self-directed learning and personalized development and their counseling focus is on professional internships, further education or employment. For students who have learning difficulties, we assign dedicated mentors to conduct learning counseling and mentors will fully take the students’ learning situations under control. 

To foster students’ awareness of social responsibilities and better meet their needs, we provide various consulting services institutions on campus, such as the Teaching/Learning Resource Center, the Office of International Affairs, the Extracurricular Activities Section, and the Corporate Legal Consulting Center. For undergraduate students, we provide an off-campus service learning system, civil literacy courses, and domestic/international volunteer activities. For graduate students, we provide regular business ethics speech courses to cultivate students’ corporate social responsibility and civil awareness. 

Feng Chia University also established the Resource Center for Indigenous Students, which is responsible for the care of life, schoolwork, and employment of the Indigenous minority students. To increase their cohesiveness, sense of belongingness, and learning effectiveness, we offer scholarships and various student aids, organize cultural cultivation and development activities, and engage in projects conducive to tribal connections.

 

• Goal 6: Promoting key construction and improving financial and human resource systems

The university has enhanced the infrastructure of the learning environment to create high-quality office, learning, and research spaces. It has developed campus spaces for students to use between classes. Seats for resting and relaxation have been installed in shaded outdoor areas on campus to make the campus space more vibrant, allowing students to gather and spend more time on campus after class.

 

• The construction of Virtuosi Hall on the new campus of Shuihan is following the ecological and low carbon concepts emphasized in the Shuihan Smart City.

The 7th floor of the Business Building has been rebuilt into a comprehensive and bright learning environment. Graduate students from the College of Business and Finance cano use freely according to their needs. We believe that the renovated space could bringing forth different learning atmospheres and provide a better learning space for more than 700 graduate students of our college. The classroom equipment on each floor, including hardware, is also being updated regularly.

The university is committed to creating a friendly environment that is safe and convenient for learning and working. It reviews and improves the barrier-free campus environment every year. We are dedicated to make the university’s 107 physically and mentally disabled students and 30 faculty and staff members (accounting for 1.28%) feel at ease in the environment and hence feel comfortable in learning and work.

Since 1997, the university has spent a total of $2.31 million (64.4 million NTD) on the barrier-free renovation project to create a barrier-free and smart living environment for every campus environment. Barrier-free access facilities, including elevators, barrier-free toilets/shower rooms, ramps, continuous handrails, protective edges, and barrier-free parking spaces in the 23 buildings across campus, have been completed. In the upcoming year, we plan to create barrier-free indoor and outdoor guidance pathways and indicator systems. In addition, the university also provides a Muslim prayer room and a friendly toilet, which is evaluated and expanded every year according to user needs.
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• Ensuring teaching quality and establishing a sound allocation of faculty resources

The college’s initiatives to improve teaching performance are in line with the university’s mission statement. The college is dedicated to providing students with a sound learning environment with diversified course modules in the facets of humanistic value, professional business management knowledge, and social services. We have constructed a project-based learning system via the CDIO educational method and design thinking in order to nurture students’ interdisciplinary expertise. We further emphasize students’ coordinating ability and literacy in the face of real practice. The role of the teacher is thus no longer to be simply a lecturer, but a learning coach, a counselor, students’ learning partner, and a supporter who allows them to make mistakes. 

The university set up a Center for Learning and Teaching Development affiliated with the Academic Affairs Office in order to continuously improve the teaching quality and facilitate teacher communities and their achievements. The center mainly provides our teaching faculty members with professional consultation on teaching and curriculum design, organizes workshops for teaching development, establishes a sound consultation mechanism for new faculty members, and offers multiple forms of teaching assistance as well as learner guidance. To encourage our faculty members to continuously improve their teaching performance, the center also organizes multiple teaching forums, teaching-related keynote speeches, tutorial workshops, and new faculty orientation workshops each semester. 

In the new faculty orientation workshops, the center introduces the available resources and university norms for new faculty members. Faculty members who were previously recognized for excellence in teaching are invited to share their experiences with teaching models, student interaction and tutoring, and innovative teaching methods. Furthermore, teachers from different fields are teamed up to discuss class design as well as soft skills in teaching, by which the university hopes to enhance faculty members’ passion for teaching. Meanwhile, to guide the novices to hit the ground running, our university develops a one-on-one faculty mentor system in which a mentor—often a senior teacher, a department head, or a faculty member recognized for excellence in teaching—serves as a counselor for a new faculty member, providing suggestions for his/her academic career development. In addition, the college organizes an orientation for new faculty member each semester to cover issues of the college vision and development, the AACSB-related routines and initiatives, and innovative teaching models. 

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• Furthermore, new teaching faculty members are encouraged to participate in at least one teacher community according to their expertise and research interests, such as Business Innovation and Smart Application Community, Cross-domain Hackathon Competition Community, ESG Practice Community, and Teaching Practice Research Group. In this way, the college hopes to promote faculty interaction, encourage research cooperation, and introduce innovative teaching models.

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