The America East Conference sponsors 18 sports (8 men's and 10 women's). The conference is among the best in the country according to Graduation Success Rate (GSR) data released by the NCAA.
History
Locations of America East Conference full member institutions 2020-22.
Later, the conference became an all-sports conference, named as the North Atlantic Conference in the 1988–89 season, only for Canisius, Niagara and Siena to leave after the spring of 1989 to join the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC).
In March 2022, Bryant University accepted an invitation to join the America East Conference, leaving the Northeast Conference. This move took effect on July 1.
Also on July 1, 2022, Stony Brook University left to join the all-sports Colonial Athletic Association; it had been a member of the CAA's technically separate football arm, CAA Football, since 2013. Then-current field hockey associate Monmouth left to join the CAA, whose all-sports league sponsors that sport.[6][7]
In 2022, the University of Hartford left the conference during its transition down to Division III. At the time this move was announced, the school's departure from the conference had been planned for 2023,[8] but this was eventually changed to 2022.
On May 6, 2021, Hartford's governing board voted to begin the process of transitioning the school from Division I to NCAA Division III. Under the plan, Hartford would formally apply to the NCAA for reclassification in January 2022, stop awarding athletic scholarships to incoming students from 2022 to 2023 forward, and join an as-yet-undetermined D-III conference in 2023 before becoming a full D-III member in 2025–26.[8][9]
Several media reports indicated that Hartford's last year in the American East Conference would be the 2021-22 season.
[10] This was confirmed on June 21, 2022, when the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) announced that it would be Hartford's partner in the school's reclassification process, with the Hawks joining that league effective in 2023–24. Hartford will play most of its sports in the 2022–23 season as a D-I independent.[11]
At the time, Hartford was the only private university in the conference; this status transferred to Bryant when it joined in July 2022.
On July 20, 2022, Merrimack College was announced to join the conference as a men's lacrosse member for the 2022-23 season.[12]
^ abFour schools (University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Davis, Stanford University and University of the Pacific) from California moved their field hockey teams into the America East in July 2015.[13] The California schools and America East planned to end their agreement in field hockey after the 2018 fall season (2018–19 school year) due to coast to coast distance and travel inconvenience, but the invitation to the west coast members was extended and they have remained in the America East field hockey until further notice. University of the Pacific have dropped their program to reduce travel cost. This also coincided with the announcement that Monmouth University would become the newest field hockey associate for the 2019 fall season (2019–20 school year) and beyond.[14][15]Stanford dropped their program in the summer of 2020, as part of an athletics cut that discontinued 11 sports, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,[16] but reversed course in May 2021, reinstating all 11 dropped sports without interruption.[17]
^The Hartford men's basketball team joined the America East a year after it became a full member for other sports (1985–86).
Former associate members
Five schools have had single-sport membership in the past. Three of these, Fairfield,[19] Monmouth, and Providence,[20] moved their America East sports into their all-sports conferences. Another such school, NJIT, left when it joined a conference that sponsored its America East sport,[21] but returned as a full member in July 2020 (by which time the AmEast had dropped that sport). Pacific dropped its America East sport following the 2018–19 academic year due to budget cuts.[22]
The America East Conference sponsors championship competition in eight men's and ten women's NCAA sanctioned sports.[23] The most recent changes to the roster of America East sports were announced in 2016, with the dropping of women's tennis after the 2015–16 season due to a lack of sponsoring teams and the revival of men's swimming and diving effective in the 2017–18 school year.[18]
^Bryant had played football in its former home of the Northeast Conference through the 2021 season, but is moving football to the Big South in 2022. The Big South will merge its football league with that of the Ohio Valley Conference in 2023.
No America East school has won a national title in a sport sponsored by the conference; however, member institutions have been national champions in non-America East sports.
^ ab"Men's Swimming & Diving to Return as Championship Sport; VMI Joins as Associate Member" (Press release). America East Conference. December 15, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2016. The America East Conference announced today the return of men's swimming & diving as a championship sport and that Virginia Military Institute (VMI) will join America East an associate member in men's and women's swimming & diving. Both changes are effective for the 2017-18 academic year.
^"MAAC to Add Field Hockey" (Press release). Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. April 19, 2013. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
