Mount Allison was the first university in the British Empire to award a baccalaureate to a woman (Grace Annie Lockhart, B.Sc., 1875).

Graduates of Mount Allison have been awarded a total of 57 Rhodes Scholarships, the highest per capita of any university in the Commonwealth of Nations.

[4] Mount Allison traces its roots to 1839 when a Sackville merchant proposed the creation of a school of elementary and higher learning.

[5] Its origins were steeped in the Methodist faith and it was designed to prepare men for the ministry and to supply education for lay members.

In 1858 an act of the New Brunswick Legislature authorized the trustees to establish a degree-conferring institution at Sackville, under the name of the Mount Allison Wesleyan College.

The president, appointed by the board, served as the link between the two bodies and provided institutional leadership..[6] By 1920, Mount Allison University had three faculties: Arts, Theology, and Engineering.

[11] The closure of the School for Girls in 1946 and the Boy's Academy in 1953 provided space for Mount Allison University's expansion.

[13] Notable professors at Mount Allison include George Stanley, who designed the Canadian flag, known as the "Maple Leaf".

American chemist James B. Sumner, who won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, taught and performed research at Mount Allison as a teaching fellow from 1910 to 1911.

[14] The mission statement of Mount Allison University promotes "the creation and dissemination of knowledge in a community of higher learning, centred on the undergraduate student and delivered in an intimate and harmonious environment".

[17] A Bachelor's degree in Science, Arts or Commerce with a major in Aviation has been developed in conjunction with the Moncton Flight College.

[18] Mount Allison’s campus is distinguished by its architecture, characterized by the distinctive red and olive sandstone that clads most of the buildings.

Succumbing to fires or demolition, these earlier buildings have been replaced with brick or stone structures, although a unique and significant instance of early Mount Allison wooden architecture survives at the centre of campus: the President's Cottage of 1857.

Noted architectural historian, John Leroux, who is working with visual artist Thaddeus Holownia on a book about the university's architecture, calls the campus "one of the finest in Canada" [19] and says some of the most beautiful buildings built in New Brunswick in the last 100 years are located at Mount Allison.

Paramount of their scheme was the creation of the central courtyard with the chapel as a focus at one end, and the Library's gateway colonnade overlooking the town and Convocation Hall at the other.

The Wallace McCain Student Centre, originally constructed as a men's residence (Trueman House) in 1945 and designed by Halifax architect C.A.

[33] Students sought a refund for tuition following the strike, a request that was denied by the board of regents.