This is part of an ongoing series covering various college realignment news for all three NCAA Divisions as well as the NAIA. The roundup below will cover news and reports since May 3, 2025, and provide updates on previously discussed topics. As a reminder, all official moves starting with the 2025-26 academic year can be found here. We’ll break out the reports for each Division in the following order: Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, and NAIA. Clicking the links will bring you to that specific section. If a division is not highlighted, there has been no news since the most recent post.

NCAA Division 1 News

New Haven Moves Up

The University of New Haven (West Haven, Connecticut) will move up from NCAA D2 to D1 beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. The Chargers will leave the Northeast-10 Conference and join the Northeast Conference. New Haven has 20 varsity sports and all of them except women’s rugby will join the NEC. Football was singled out in the school’s press release because it wasn’t disclosed when New Haven would be added to the NEC’s schedule. All other sports will be integrated into NEC schedules beginning with the upcoming 2025-26 academic year.

Both the NE-10 and NEC will have 10 full members in 2025-26, but that won’t last long. Saint Francis is leaving the NEC after the 2025-26 academic year to join NCAA D3 and the Presidents’ Athletic Conference. Then again, there’s the chance the NE-10 sees more losses, or maybe proactively adds members. In 2024, New Haven and Bentley were linked to a move up. Could Bentley be joining New Haven soon?

For the NEC, there won’t be any membership issues at the individual sport level starting in 2026-27 (after Saint Francis leaves). For the Northeast-10, women’s golf will be at 5 in 2025-26 with New Haven leaving. Men’s and women’s golf will both be at 7 members, one above the minimum.

Marquette, St. Bonaventure Add Sports Teams

Marquette University will add a women’s swimming team beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. The team will not have a diving component and will compete in the Big East Conference. Butler, Connecticut, Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, Villanova, and Xavier are the other 7 schools Big East schools that sponsor women’s swimming.

St. Bonaventure will add women’s golf beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. The Bonnies will compete in the Atlantic 10 as the seventh member following Dayton, Duquesne, La Salle, Loyola-Chicago, Richmond, and Saint Joseph’s. Four other NCAA D1 programs are adding a golf program over the next two years: Arkansas-Pine Bluff (SWAC), Manhattan (MAAC), Providence (Big East), and Rice (AAC).

MVFC and Summit League Partnership

The previously reported MVFC and Summit League partnership is now official. Although not stated explicitly in the press release, the two conferences are expected to work closely together on any future membership changes. The MVFC also announced Jeff Jackson as the new commissioner on July 1, 2025. Jackson will replace Patty Viverito, who was the MVFC’s only commissioner since its inception.

NCAA Division 2 News

Menlo College (Atherton, California) will add a club baseball team. The Oaks are set to compete in the National Club Baseball Association (NCBA) Division II Pacific Region and South Conference. Barring any changes, Menlo will become the sixth member of this conference alongside Arizona State, Cal State – San Marcos, Grand Canyon, San Diego, and UC Irvine.

NCAA Division 3 News

Eastern Connecticut State Adding Women’s Golf

Eastern Connecticut State University (Willimantic, Connecticut) is adding women’s golf beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. ECSU will compete as an independent and is one of five Little East Conference schools to sponsor women’s golf after Keene State, Rhode Island College, Southern Maine, and Western Connecticut State. ECSU was very confident in the press release that the Little East would begin sponsoring women’s golf soon and needs only one additional team to do so. The LEC would then have a two-year waiting period and apply for a waiver to receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship. If this scenario sounds familiar, it is. The Colonial Women’s Golf Conference just went through the same process of creation and applying for the waiver. The CWGC will begin competing in the NCAA championship with the 2027-28 academic year.

Gwynedd Mercy Adding Men’s Volleyball

Gwynedd Mercy University (Lower Gwynedd Township, Pennsylvania) is adding men’s volleyball beginning with the 2026-27 academic year. The Griffins will compete as an independent team because the Atlantic East Conference does not sponsor the sport. Immaculata, Marymount, Neumann, and Pratt are fellow AEC members that offer the sport. Neumann is departing for the Middle Atlantic Conferences in 2026-27 while future AEC member Saint Elizabeth joins in 2025-26 and sponsors men’s volleyball.

NAIA News

Hastings Adding Men’s Volleyball

Hastings College (Hastings, Nebraska) is adding men’s volleyball beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. The college did not say which conference they will compete in. Hastings is a member of the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC), which doesn’t sponsor men’s volleyball. Only two other GPAC members – Dordt (IA) and Morningside (IA) – sponsor a men’s volleyball team and are affiliate members of the Heart of America Athletic Conference (HAAC). Six other NAIA schools are adding men’s volleyball over the next two academic years and two are discontinuing the sport.

Providence Christian College Drops Athletics

Providence Christian College (Pasadena, California) has discontinued its athletics program. PCC only had three varsity sports remaining: men’s baseball, women’s outdoor track & field, and women’s volleyball. The Sea Beggars discontinued four sports in April – men’s golf, men’s soccer, women’s golf, and women’s soccer – and were aiming to bring back men’s and women’s cross country and track & field. Instead, the California Pacific Conference will lose another member with Pacific Union, Simpson, Stanton, and Westcliff as full members. Northern New Mexico is joining the Cal Pac as an associate member in four sports, as full member status requires a minimum of seven Cal Pac-sponsored sports.

Providence Christian College is the 11th NCAA or NAIA school to announce it will discontinue athletics voluntarily, due to a closing, or due to a merger. There’s also Cal Maritime, which is likely merging with Cal Poly but hasn’t announced what will happen to its athletic programs.

The Cal Pac stated in December that it hopes to add as many as four members. Any new addition would offset the five schools that are already set to leave in 2025-26: Cal Maritime (leaving NAIA and integrating with Cal Poly), La Sierra (GSAC), Providence Christian (dropping athletics), Soka (GSAC), and UC Merced (NCAA D2 CCAA). Those new additions need to happen sooner rather than later if the conference wants to stave off more losses.

Simpson Moving Softball

Speaking of the Cal Pac issues, Simpson University (Redding, California) is moving its softball team from the Cal Pac to the Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) beginning with the 2025-26 academic year. The Cal Pac only has three members for softball: La Sierra, Simpson, and Westcliff. As a result of the low numbers, no AQ bid is awarded to the conference, which led to Simpson and Westcliff participating in the 2025 Continental Athletic Conference’s softball tournament to have a shot at an NAIA Championship bid. Simpson is also an affiliate member of the CCC in men’s wrestling, women’s beach volleyball, and women’s wrestling.

The CCC will have 9 softball members in 2025-26 with British Columbia, Bushnell, College of Idaho, Corban, Eastern Oregon, Oregon Tech, Simpson, Southern Oregon, and Warner Pacific. Carroll College (MT) and the University of Providence (MT) are full members of the Frontier Conference, which will begin sponsoring softball again in 2025-26.

St. Thomas (FL) Adding Men’s Lacrosse

St. Thomas University (Miami Gardens, Florida) is adding men’s lacrosse for the 2026-27 academic year. The school did not specify which conference it will compete in. The Bobcats are the fourth Sun Conference team to add the sport after Keiser, Savannah College of Art and Design, and Webber International. Those play in the Appalachian Athletic Conference because the Sun Conference doesn’t sponsor the sport. The NAIA made men’s lacrosse a championship sport last August with this year’s tournament the first since receiving that designation.

Webber International Suspending 8 Teams

Webber International University (Babson Park, Florida) announced it will suspend 8 sports teams for the 2025-26 academic year, “…to align its academic and athletic program offerings with its vision and commitment to improving its operational efficiencies…”. Webber has 17 varsity sports and 6 developmental sports after the suspension. The 8 sports that will be discontinued are listed in the table below, along with their conference affiliation and the remaining number of teams for that sport if they participate in the Sun Conference.

Photo by Soheb Zaidi on Unsplash