Mount Allison University (also Mount A or MtA) is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839.
Mount Allison was the first university in the British Empire to award a baccalaureate to a woman (Grace Annie Lockhart, B.Sc., 1875). It was also the first university in Canada to grant a bachelors of arts to a woman (Harriet Starr Stewart). Graduates of Mount Allison have been awarded a total of 56 Rhodes Scholarships, the highest per capita of any university in the Commonwealth of Nations.
Among universities in Canada, Mount Allison is one of the wealthiest on an endowment per student basis. Of the 69 universities reporting on endowment funds nationally, Mount Allison has the largest endowment fund per student in Canada (when small residential colleges federated with larger universities are excluded).
Mount Allison traces its roots to 1839 when a Sackville merchant proposed the creation of a school of elementary and higher learning. The university is a secular (but United Church-affiliated) primarily undergraduate liberal arts university, with classes beginning in Sackville, New Brunswick on January 19, 1843. Mount Allison was named after Charles Frederick Allison, in honour of his gift of land and money. 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. The university was chartered on April 14, 1849.
In June 1839, Charles Allison was encouraged by Wesleyan Methodist Minister Rev. John Bass Strong that a school of elementary and higher learning be built. Allison offered to purchase a site in Sackville to erect a suitable building for an academy and to contribute operating funds of £100 a year for 10 years. This offer was accepted and the Wesleyan Academy for boys subsequently opened in 1843.
In 1854, a women's institution (later known as the "Ladies College") was opened to complement the boys' academy. 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.
In July 1862, the degree-granting Mount Allison College was organized. The first two students, Howard Sprague and Josiah Wood, graduated in May 1863.
For nearly a century, Mount Allison functioned as three distinct, mutually enriching parts: the College proper, the Boys' Academy, and the Ladies College. The corporate name was changed to University of Mount Allison College in 1886.
The university's affiliation was transferred to the United Church of Canada following church union in 1925. Original components of the university included: the Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy for Boys (1840–1958), the Ladies' College (1854–1958), and Mount Allison College. Mount Allison College was established in 1862 with degree-granting powers on behalf of the other two.
The governance was modelled on the provincial University of Toronto Act of 1906 which established a bicameral system of university government consisting of a senate (faculty), responsible for academic policy, and a board of governors (citizens) exercising exclusive control over financial policy and having formal authority in all other matters. The president, appointed by the board, was to provide a link between the two bodies and to perform institutional leadership.
American chemist James B. Sumner, who won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, taught at Mount Allison as a teaching fellow beginning in 1910.
By 1920, Mount Allison University had three faculties: Arts, Theology, and Engineering. It awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Science (BSc), Bachelor of Divinity (BD), and Master of Arts. It had 246 male students and 73 female students, as well as 28 academic staff, all male.
The closure of the School for Girls in 1946 and the Boy's Academy in 1953 coincided with a period of expansion and provided much-needed space for the growing university. In 1958, a period of construction and acquisition of buildings began, easing the strain of overcrowding at the institution. At this time the university board and administration decided to reaffirm the traditional aims of Mount Allison in providing a high-quality undergraduate liberal arts education, along with continuing to offer professional programs in already-established fields. As such, the university decided not to compete for new professional programs and generally avoided post-graduate course development.
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