The school's colors, purple and gold, are seen throughout the traditional campus, consisting mainly of buildings of the Victorian and Collegiate Gothic architectural styles.

The colors purple and gold come from both the banners of the women's suffrage movement and the iris, the college flower.

The octagonal study in which Mark Twain wrote many of his most widely read novels, including A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is located on campus, and the center maintains Quarry Farm, where the Clemens family spent more than twenty summers, as a research facility for Twain scholars.

[4] In 1995, Elmira College was sanctioned by the American Association of University Professors "for infringement of governance standards".

[8][9] Elmira College's academic calendar contains a special six-week Spring Term, which is held in April and May.

[citation needed] In 2016 the United States Department of Education determined the college had violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, for failure to promptly and equitably respond to complaints of sexual harassment and sexual violence.

[10] Elmira College is a member of the NCAA, New York State Women's Collegiate Athletic Association (NYSWCAA), ECAC, NEHC, and Empire 8.

[13] Elmira College holds several NCAA Division III National Championships in Women's Ice Hockey[14] as well as in NCA Competitive Cheerleading.

[15] For eighty years, Elmira College possessed an observatory built by Professor Charles Farrar.