page_title: Northeastern University (China)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Northeastern University (China) / History
caption_attribution_description: 中文: 东北大学旧校徽，1929年林徽因设计
context_page_description: Northeastern University is a public university in Shenyang, Liaoning province with strengths in engineering and architecture. It is known for its prominent role in the information technology industry.
  The university's academic motto is "Striving endlessly for self-improvement, combining knowledge and action as one", the first half of which is from the ancient Chinese classic Yijing, and the latter is a direct quote from Wang Yangming and also translated as "thinking-doing to theory" by the NEU's Engineering faculty.
  Having built China's first electronic analog computer, university research park, and university-run commercial enterprise, Northeastern is now part of a government plan to revitalize the Northeast China economy with a focus on high-tech manufacturing. Its alumni include the founder and CEO of Neusoft, the largest Chinese IT and software outsourcing corporation, the first Olympic athlete to represent China, in the 1932 Summer Olympics, and the founder of Amnesty International in Taiwan.
context_section_description: The Northeastern University was founded on April 26, 1923 in Shenyang (then known as Fengtian), in response to warlord Zhang Zuolin's order in early 1921 to establish tertiary education and expand the talent pool of the Northeast.  After Zhang Zuolin's assassination by the Japanese, his son Zhang Xueliang inherited the command of the Northeast, assumed the title of co-president of the university in August 1928, and became the university's most important financial and political patron in its early history.  With Zhang's generous support, the institution attracted top scholars and educators from throughout the nation (e.g. Zhang Shizhao, Huang Kan, Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin), and quickly developed into a top-tier comprehensive university, with six schools for science, engineering, humanities, law, agriculture and education.  By the end of the 1920s, it was the biggest and best-resourced tertiary institute in China, with a budget tripling that of the Peking University.
  Less than a decade after the university was founded, the Imperial Japanese Kwantung Army attacked and captured Shenyang on September 18, 1931, and then proceeded to invade and annex all of Northeast China and reorganized the region into the puppet state of Manchukuo.  the Northeastern University was forced to evacuate its campus after the fall of Shenyang and became the first exiled university in Chinese history, being relocated to Beiping during the height of the December 9th Movement, with its more than 70 students continuing their study at the then-private Nankai University.  Five years later, the university was relocated further west to Xi'an in 1936, then temporarily to a borrowed Henan University campus at Kaifeng in January 1937, before renamed National Northeastern University (國立東北大學) and relocated back to Xi'an in June.
  After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937, the Japanese launched a full-scale invasion of North China.  Like many other national universities in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Northeastern University was again displaced in 1938 and relocated further away from the approaching front line to Santai in Sichuan, where it remained for the next 8 years and contributed to the establishment of the National Northwest Institute of Technology (國立西北工學院, the precursor of Northwestern Polytechnical University and Tianjin University).  After Japan's surrender, the university returned to its original campus in Shenyang in May 1946, while some staff of its Education faculty remained in Sichuan and later became the Sichuan Normal University and China West Normal University.
  After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Northeastern University was renamed Northeast Institute of Technology (东北工学院, NIT) in August 1950 and became primarily an engineering school, before finally reverting back to its original name of Northeastern University on March 8, 1993.
  Northeastern University was selected to participate in the 211 Project and Project 985, nationwide government initiatives to expand and modernize the Chinese university system, including significant government funding and subsidies for constructing state-of-the-art academic facilities. The university is also part of the national government's initiative to replace Northeast China's heavy manufacturing industry with a modern high-tech manufacturing economy.
caption: An old Northeastern University logo designed by Lin Huiyun, China's first female modern architect and faculty in the Department of Architecture
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