Mountain East Conference

Mountain East Conference

60km
37miles

Charleston

Shawnee State

Davis & Elkins

Frostburg State

W.V. Wesleyan

West Virginia State

Wheeling

West Liberty

Point Park

Glenville State

Fairmont State

Concord

   

Location of MEC members: current

The conference is an offshoot of the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC), another Division II conference that had operated primarily in West Virginia since 1924. In June 2012, the nine football-playing schools in that conference announced plans to break away and form a new all-sports conference. The schools that made the initial announcement were the University of Charleston, Concord University, Fairmont State University, Glenville State College (now a university), Seton Hill University, Shepherd University, West Liberty University, West Virginia State University, and West Virginia Wesleyan College.^[1] All of these schools were in West Virginia, except for Seton Hill, located in Pennsylvania. According to regional media, the split was "supposedly rooted in different philosophies of progressivism",^[2] and also was partially driven by a desire to expand the new conference's footprint outside West Virginia.^[3] The divisions in the WVIAC were also rooted in the split between public and private schools, although the departing schools included institutions of both types.^[4]

At the time of the original announcement, the nine schools planned to expand to at least 12 members.^[2] Before the official launch of the conference on August 20, 2012,^[5] the MEC sought to add the WVIAC's other Pennsylvania member, the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown; however, both Seton Hill and Pittsburgh–Johnstown chose to join the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC).^[3] The MEC filled out its charter membership with another West Virginia school, Wheeling Jesuit University, today known as Wheeling University; two Ohio schools, Notre Dame College and Urbana University; and the University of Virginia's College at Wise (UVA Wise), located in Southwest Virginia.^[5] Wheeling Jesuit was a WVIAC member that had been left out of the original WVIAC split.^[3] Urbana and UVA Wise were members of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) in 2012–13, while Notre Dame was a Division II independent that had housed five of its 22 sports in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.^[5] UVA Wise, which had previously been turned down for WVIAC membership,^[3] was transitioning from the NAIA and did not officially become an active D-II member until 2015-16; all of the other charter members were already full D-II members.^[5]

At its launch, the MEC had 11 football members, with Wheeling (then known as Wheeling Jesuit) being the only non-football school.^[3] On February 15, 2013, the NCAA accepted the MEC as its 25th D2 conference.^[6] The 2015–16 school year was the first in which MEC teams were eligible for automatic bids to NCAA Division II championships; before then, they were eligible only for at-large bids.^[6]

In 2018, UVA Wise and the South Atlantic Conference (SAC) jointly announced on April 13 that UVA Wise would leave the MEC to join the SAC for 2019–20 and beyond.^[7] Next, Shepherd and the PSAC jointly announced on June 7 that Shepherd would join the PSAC in 2019, becoming that league's first full member outside of Pennsylvania.^[8] The MEC would replace both members in the ensuing months. On July 5, the Mountain East Conference announced that Frostburg State University had accepted an offer of membership beginning with the 2019–20 academic year, contingent upon Frostburg State achieving active membership status in NCAA Division II (which would occur on the announced schedule).^[9] Finally, on August 30, the MEC announced two additional new members effective in 2019–20. Davis & Elkins College would become a full member, and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNC Pembroke) would join in five sports. UNC Pembroke began MEC competition in men's and women's indoor track & field, women's swimming & diving, and wrestling in 2019, with football following in 2020.^[10]

Multiple MEC membership changes were announced in 2020. On April 16, multi-sport associate member UNC Pembroke announced it would join Conference Carolinas (CC) effective in 2021–22. Because CC sponsors all of the non-football sports that UNCP housed in the MEC but at the time did not sponsor football, UNCP remained an MEC member only in football,^[11] eventually fully leaving the MEC in 2025 when CC reinstated football as a sponsored sport.^[12] Five days later, charter member Urbana announced it would close at the end of the 2019–20 school year.^[13] Finally, on June 5, Alderson Broaddus University, a West Virginia school left out of the WVIAC split, announced that it would leave the G-MAC to join the MEC the following month.^[14] However, their tenure in the MEC was short-lived, as on July 31, 2023, Alderson Broaddus' authorization to grant degrees was revoked, resulting in the immediate suspension of all athletics.^[15]

In 2024, charter member Notre Dame College announced it would shut down.^[16] That same year, it was announced that Point Park University would join the conference from the NAIA River States Conference. This marked the MEC’s first member in Pennsylvania.^[17]

The MEC sponsored 16 sports in all, eight each for men and women, at its formation.^[3] Women's lacrosse became the 17th conference sport for the 2014–15 school year (2015 season). Men's and women's swimming and diving were added as the 18th and 19th conference sports for 2017–18, with the MEC and Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) forming a swimming and diving alliance that conducts a joint conference championship meet.^[34] The following school year saw the MEC add acrobatics & tumbling as an official sport, two years before it was added to the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program.^[35] The MEC was the first NCAA conference to establish acrobatics & tumbling as an official sport.^[36] The most recently added sports are men's and women's indoor track & field and wrestling, which debuted in 2019–20.^[10]

Since the founding of the conference in 2013, member institutions of the Mountain East Conference have won six NCAA national championships.

Note: Shawnee State is set to join the conference in the 2026–27 academic year and is scheduled to begin sponsoring football in 2028. The football team will play their home games at Spartan Municipal Stadium^[56]