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This article was authored by Dr. Ian Sutherland, President and Vice-Chancellor, with support from Lucas Orfanides, a third-year PPE student.

At its heart, Mount Allison is about knowledge and creativity, expanding what we know, creating new understanding, sharing learning, all in the service of making the world better. We see this most vividly in students, minds tuning to a wider more complex world, stretching toward new questions, and growing into more knowledgeable, thoughtful, creative citizens ready to contribute far beyond themselves.

This is why universities matter now more than ever. The learning in them moves outward from classrooms, labs, performance spaces, and campus environs. Here, knowledge is not an abstract ideal. It is a force, shaped by curiosity, carried by people, and offered back to the world with purpose.

Recently, my husband and I marked the second anniversary of our arrival in Sackville, and of my time as President of Mount Allison. Each day, I feel the privilege and honour of serving this exceptional university. To come to work here is to see, every day, the real and enduring good Mount Allison brings to students, the town and region, New Brunswick, Canada, and beyond.

Over these two years, I have proudly felt how Mount Allison's impact rests on an enduring tradition. For nearly 200 years, Allisonians have gone into the world as leaders, shaping communities, business, politics, healthcare, and more. Recently we said a poignant farewell to one such person. The Hon. Dr. Marilyn Trenholme Counsell grew up in , earned her Bachelor of Science degree at Mount Allison in 1954, her medical degree in Toronto, and completed further studies at Cornell. With that training, she could have built a career anywhere. Instead, she came home and set up as a just across the street from Mount Allison.

In Dr. Trenholme Counsell won the Tantramar riding, entered the legislature, became the province's , served as of the province, and later entered the . Through it all, she kept returning to a notion she had long held, that every child in this province should grow up able to read. She turned that belief into serving as the of the New Brunswick Literacy Strategy, a province-wide program, and

Marilyn was exceptional, yet in another sense she was a deeply recognizable Mount Allison graduate, someone who took what she learned here and used it to lift up her community.

That same flame, that enduring legacy, burns brightly on our campus every day. In 2021, a group of Mount Allison faculty launched Together Time, a program created for children and built on a simple but powerful idea, to bring the joy of learning within the reach of as many young people as possible. Professors and students work with children, schools, and teachers across southeastern New Brunswick and into Cumberland County, bringing story sacks and backpacks filled with books, games, and toys that weave together literature, math, science, and art. Students from partner schools also come to campus for days of learning that help them see themselves as young scientists, artists, and musicians. Each year, Mount Allison student interns and dozens of student volunteers help bring these experiences to life. In a region where learning outcomes can and must improve, the hundreds of children touched by this program matter profoundly.

In 2026, the program and its co-directors were awarded the in the Dr. Marilyn Trenholme Counsell Literacy Awards.

The same commitment is visible in Mount Allison's research, much of it place-based work that asks challenging questions to help New Brunswick understand itself more clearly. While Together Time connects university faculty and students to the learning journeys of local kids, our research labs connect faculty and students to our shared lands, waters, social, community, and health challenges.

Dr. Josh Kurek has spent years asking a hard question about New Brunswick's environmental past. Between , the province ran one of the aerial pesticide programs the world had ever seen, spraying with DDT to beat back the destructive spruce budworm. When the spraying stopped, most assumed the harm had stopped as well. Kurek wanted to know whether that was true. It was not. For several years, he and his student researchers have been studying New Brunswick lakes and brook trout, in places where New Brunswickers cast their lines, camp, and spend time at the cottage. What they have found is sobering. More than fifty years later, the DDT is still there, in some places at more than the level where it begins to harm wildlife.

Step from the building housing Dr. Kurek's lab, cross the academic quad, and you will find Dr. Vett Lloyd's tick lab, where some of the most important health and environmental research in New Brunswick is underway. As we experience a rapid increase in tick populations and tick-borne diseases, Dr. Lloyd and her team are at the forefront of , and helping communities better understand and manage the emerging risks. Their work provides critical evidence that informs public health responses, supports policy, and enables New Brunswickers to make safer decisions about outdoor recreation, work, and daily life.

This knowledge and this work matter to all of us, and to the shared future we are building together.

Students are involved at every level of this work. They are working with faculty to deliver Together Time, collecting samples by canoe for the DDT research, and running DNA sequencing in the tick lab. But the impact is not only faculty-led. Mount Allison students are active change agents in their own right.

In leadership and service, Mount Allison students are contributing continuously to Sackville, Tantramar, the region, and the province. Consider the Mount Allison Students' Union. Beyond all of its student advocacy and support work, it leads cystic fibrosis fundraising, supports a green investment fund and , advances environmental stewardship projects, hosts Pride celebrations and community cleanups, and works with local partners to strengthen the social, environmental, and economic well-being of the region. It's not just the student union, either, as students band together for all sorts of social causes on Mount Allison's campus, from the Environmental Cleanup Club, which has hosted community cleanups for years, to MtA Give Blood, a club that brings in blood and stem cell donations for Blood Canada from students across campus, to Back to Basics, a program started by Olivia MacLeod this year that brings financial literacy and training to schools across the region.

Their work and learning extend beyond the classroom. They are taking on real-world challenges, building connections across generations and communities, and channeling their energy and creativity toward causes that matter. Like Dr. Trenholme Counsell and generations of Allisonians before them, they are developing into thoughtful leaders and engaged citizens.

This work matters deeply for New Brunswick. Yes, Universities educate students, but their contribution reaches much further. They help communities understand the challenges before them, bring people together to find answers, and prepare graduates who carry their knowledge and commitment into every part of the province.

Nearly two centuries after its founding, Mount Allison continues to do what it has always done at its best, gathering bright minds, nurturing generous hearts, and helping people create a better future. In every generation, through every challenge, Allisonians have carried something of this place with them, a belief in learning, a commitment to their communities, and the quiet courage to make things better. That is our legacy, our present, and our future.