History
NEC Member locations
– Full member
– Departing full member
The conference was named the ECAC Metro Conference when it was established in 1981. The original eleven member schools were Fairleigh Dickinson University, the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University (whose athletic program has now merged with that of LIU's Post campus into a single athletic program), Loyola College in Maryland (left in 1989), Marist College (left in 1997), Robert Morris University (left in 2020), St. Francis College (NY) (left in 2023), Saint Francis College (PA) (leaving in 2026), Siena College (left in 1984), Towson State University (left in 1982), the University of Baltimore (left in 1983) and Wagner College. [2]
The conference's name was changed to Northeast Conference on August 1, 1988. [3] Other names considered were Big North, Great North, North Shore, Northern, Northeastern, Eastern and Eastern Private Intercollegiate. [4]
The Northeast Conference has admitted new members ten times since 1981. The expansions and additions from the original charter members were in 1985 (Monmouth University, which left in 2013), in 1989 (Mount St. Mary's University, which left in 2022), in 1992 (Rider University, which left in 1997), in 1997 (Central Connecticut State University), in 1998 (Quinnipiac University which left in 2013, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County which left in 2003), in 1999 (Sacred Heart University, which left in 2024), in 2008 (Bryant University, which also left in 2022), in 2019 (Merrimack College, which also left in 2024), in 2022 (Stonehill College), in 2023 (Le Moyne College), 2024 (Chicago State University and Mercyhurst University) and in 2025 (University of New Haven). The Northeast Conference's full membership was its largest at 12 in 2008, with the addition of Bryant University. [5] It then dropped to 10 in 2013, with the departure of Monmouth and Quinnipiac for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), returned to 11 with the 2019 addition of Merrimack, and again dropped to 10 in 2020 with the departure of Robert Morris for the Horizon League. The conference dropped to nine members in 2022, with the departure of Bryant and Mount St. Mary's, respectively for the America East Conference and the MAAC, plus the addition of Stonehill. On March 20, 2023, St. Francis Brooklyn announced that all intercollegiate sports would be dropped effective at the end of the 2022–23 season, dropping the NEC down to eight full members. This was followed on May 10, 2023, by the announcement that Le Moyne College would begin a transition from Division II and join the NEC on July 1. [6]
Additional changes were announced in 2018 and took effect with the 2019–20 school year. First, on September 10, the NEC announced it would add Merrimack. [7] Then, on October 3, Long Island University announced that it would combine its two existing athletic programs—NEC member LIU Brooklyn and the Division II program at LIU Post—into a single Division I program under the LIU name. The new LIU program, nicknamed Sharks, [8] maintains LIU Brooklyn's previous memberships in Division I and the NEC. [9] Another recent change took place on July 1, 2020, when charter member Robert Morris left to join the Horizon League. The next changes in membership were on July 1, 2022, with Bryant leaving for the America East Conference, [10] Mount St. Mary's leaving for the MAAC, [11] and Stonehill arriving from NCAA Division II. [12]
The Northeast Conference has a total of 10 full members in 24 championship sports: baseball, men's and women's basketball, women's bowling, men's and women's cross country, women's field hockey, football, men's and women's golf, men's and women's indoor track & field, women's lacrosse, men's and women's outdoor track & field, men's and women's soccer, softball, men's and women's swimming, men's and women's tennis, and men's and women's volleyball.
Men's lacrosse became the league's 23rd sport for the 2011 season. [13] The number of sports dropped to 22 after the 2012–13 school year, when the conference dropped field hockey. The departure of Monmouth and Quinnipiac to become all-sports members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) in July 2013, gave the MAAC four full members that sponsored the sport; the other two were NEC single-sport affiliates Rider and Siena. The MAAC then decided to add field hockey as a sponsored sport for the 2013 season, [14] and all of the NEC's remaining field hockey programs eventually joined the MAAC except for Saint Francis (PA), which joined the Atlantic 10 Conference. The NEC reinstated field hockey as a sponsored sport for the 2019 season with seven members—full members Bryant, LIU, Merrimack, Sacred Heart, and Wagner, plus associate members Fairfield and Rider. [15] Saint Francis (PA) rejoined the NEC in field hockey during the 2021–22 season. A more recent addition to the NEC's sports roster was men's swimming & diving, added for 2020–21 with full members Bryant, LIU, Mount St. Mary's, St. Francis Brooklyn, and Wagner plus incoming associate member Howard. [16]
In 2022–23, the NEC added one sport and dropped another. On September 30, 2021, the NEC announced that it would begin sponsoring men's volleyball in 2022–23 with six members. [17] Before the end of the 2021–22 school year, the NEC announced that two Division II schools from the Buffalo, New York area, Daemen and D'Youville, would also become part of the new men's volleyball league. [18] In a May 9, 2022 Twitter post, NEC commissioner Noreen Morris indicated that the NEC would shut down its men's lacrosse league after the then-ongoing 2022 season. The NEC had already lost two full members that sponsored the sport, and would eventually lose its two affiliate members in that sport when the Atlantic 10 Conference announced it would launch a men's lacrosse league in the 2023 season. [19] Three of the remaining four NEC men's lacrosse programs became affiliate members of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The other program, Merrimack, was in talks with several lacrosse-sponsoring conferences for affiliate membership, [20] and eventually joined the America East in time for the 2023 season. [21]
In July 2022, the Northeast Conference announced a partnership with the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference in which MEAC schools sponsoring baseball and men's and women's golf would become affiliate members in their respective sports beginning in the 2022–23 season. [22] That September, the NEC announced that MEAC member Delaware State, which had just joined NEC baseball and women's golf, would add women's lacrosse and women's soccer to its NEC membership in 2023–24. [23]
In March 2023, St. Francis College (Brooklyn) announced that it would discontinue its athletic programs at the end of the spring 2023 schedule. [24] Le Moyne was announced as SFC's replacement that May.
The NEC added two affiliate members in 2023–24—Binghamton University in men's golf plus men's and women's tennis, [25] and Niagara University in bowling. Niagara added that sport for 2023–24 by effectively absorbing the bowling program of Medaille University, a nearby Division III school that closed at the end of the 2022–23 school year. [26]
In October 2023, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference announced that Merrimack and Sacred Heart were going to join the conference for the 2024–25 season. [27] This announcement came on the heels of the announcement that the NEC was going to support men's lacrosse as a conference sponsored sport for the 2024–25 academic year, after having to discontinue it two years earlier due to the lack of sponsoring members. The original plan was for full members Le Moyne, LIU, Merrimack, Sacred Heart, and Wagner to be joined by two new associate members, the University of Detroit Mercy and the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). [28] The departure of Merrimack and Sacred Heart left the number of men's lacrosse programs in the conference with less than the 6 member minimum required for an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse tournament. The NEC announced in November 2023 that Cleveland State University and former full member Robert Morris would join the league as men's lacrosse associates. [29] In November 2023, Robert Morris also announced that it would return to the NEC in football. [30] Shortly thereafter, Maryland Eastern Shore announced that it would add men's volleyball in the 2026 season (2025–26 school year) as an NEC associate member, increasing the number of NEC teams to four. It became the first historically black Division I member to announce the addition of that sport. [31] In April 2024, Sacred Heart announced that it was going to leave NEC men's volleyball and return to the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, where it had played that sport before the NEC established its own league. [32] Also in 2024–25, former full member Monmouth returned to the NEC as an associate member in bowling. [33] Soon after the start of the 2024–25 academic year, Manhattan University announced that it was going to add men's volleyball and become an NEC affiliate in 2025–26. [34]
In response to the departure of Merrimack and Sacred Heart, the NEC announced first in December 2023 that D-I independent Chicago State University was going to join the NEC. [35] A few months later, in April 2024, Mercyhurst University announced that it was going to transition from Division II and join the NEC, bringing the league to nine members again for the 2024–25 season. [36]
On March 25, 2025, Saint Francis University announced it would transition from Division I to Division III following the 2025–26 academic year. [37] [38]
On May 6, 2025, the University of New Haven announced it had accepted an invitation to join the conference and begin its reclassification from Division II starting on July 1, 2025. [39]
On October 2, 2025, the conference announced that it would be dropping the Northeast Conference name and officially become known as the NEC, making it an orphaned initialism. [1]
Currently, a total of 20 affiliate members compete in football, women's golf, men's and women's lacrosse, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's swimming, women's bowling, field hockey, and men's volleyball.
