[1] The school, initially named Rivier College, was founded in 1933 as by the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary in Hudson, New Hampshire.

[4] The university is dedicated to Anne Marie Rivier's mission of Catholic social teaching and serving the economically disadvantaged.

[4] On January 15, 1960, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, visited Rivier College[5] shortly after leaving the City Hall Plaza in Nashua, where he held his first event for his candidacy for president of the United States.

[1] Rivier is a member of the New Hampshire College & University Council,[11] a consortium of institutions of higher learning.

Rivier University teams participate as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III.

In 2020, Marika Lyszczyk, a player from Canada, became the first woman to catch in a men's college baseball game while playing for Rivier University.