The Continental Volleyball Conference is an intercollegiate men's volleyball conference associated with the NCAA's Division III.

History

On April 4, 2011 Gary Williams, Associate Athletic Director of Carthage College announced in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

the formation of the Continental Volleyball Conference. The league was established as a direct result of the launch of the

NCAA Men's Division III Volleyball Championship The NCAA Division III men's volleyball tournament is a championship event officially sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the main governing body for U.S. college sports. Open only to schools in Division III of the ...

in the next school year of 2011–12, with the inaugural tournament to take place in April 2012. With the continued growth of Division III men's volleyball, the CVC announced in March 2014 that it would split into two leagues after the 2014 season. The league's six Eastern members retained the CVC name and branding, while the six

Midwestern The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

members, plus two other Midwestern schools that had been announced as incoming CVC members, formed a new men's volleyball conference that was later unveiled as the

Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League The Midwest Collegiate Volleyball League (MCVL) is an intercollegiate men's volleyball conference associated with the NCAA's Division III. History The MCVL was founded in March 2014 by an amicable split of the Continental Volleyball Conference (C ...

(MCVL). When the split was announced, the eastern members also added Rutgers–Newark, a Division III school which had previously played at the National Collegiate (Division I/II) level as a "grandfathered" scholarship-granting program, for the 2015 season. The conference added the newly launched men's volleyball program of Alvernia as its eighth member for the 2017 season. Further membership changes were announced in 2016. First, on October 12, the

Middle Atlantic Conferences The Middle Atlantic Conferences (MAC) is an umbrella organization of three athletic conferences that competes in the NCAA's Division III. The 18 member colleges are in the Mid-Atlantic United States. The organization is divided into two main c ...

, whose Commonwealth Conference was the all-sports home of charter CVC member Stevenson and new CVC member Alvernia, announced that its Middle Atlantic Conference would begin sponsoring men's volleyball in the 2018 season, leading to the departure of those schools from the CVC. Within a week of this development, the CVC announced that Kean, Neumann, and Southern Virginia would become new members for the 2018 season, and that Thiel would leave after that same season. Then, on November 21, Ramapo was announced as an incoming member for the 2018 season. Thiel did not initially announce its future men's volleyball affiliation, but would eventually be revealed as a new affiliate member of the

Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference The Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference (AMCC) is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Member institutions are located in the northeastern United States in the states of New York and Pennsylvania. ...

effective with the 2018–19 school year. While Thiel left after the 2018 season, the CVC added three new members for the 2019 season, all of which launched new varsity programs at that time. First, in October 2017,

Randolph–Macon College Randolph–Macon College is a private liberal arts college in Ashland, Virginia. Founded in 1830, the college has an enrollment of more than 1,500 students. It is the second-oldest Methodist-run college in the country, and the oldest in contin ...

was announced as an incoming member. Then, in December of that year, the CVC announced that

Elizabethtown College Elizabethtown College (informally E-town) is a private college in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. History Founding and early years Founded in 1899, Elizabethtown College is one of many higher learning institutions founded in the 19th century by c ...

and

Immaculata University Immaculata University is a private Roman Catholic university in East Whiteland Township, Pennsylvania. It was founded by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The university is composed of 1,427 traditional undergraduate and a ...

would also join. On July 1, 2018 the New Jersey Athletic Conference announced they would add men's volleyball as a sponsored sport. Kean and Rutgers–Newark maintain dual membership in the CVC and NJAC starting in 2018–19. Ramapo College left the CVC and returned to the

Skyline Conference The Skyline Conference is a college athletic conference based in the New York City area that competes in the NCAA's Division III. The league was originally chartered on May 16, 1989, as a men's basketball conference and now sponsors 17 sports (n ...

; Rampo maintains dual affiliation for men's volleyball in the NJAC and Skyline. Inaugural member, Cairn departed the conference for the 2019–20 academic year after the university's all-sport conference, the

Colonial States Athletic Conference The Colonial States Athletic Conference (CSAC) is an NCAA Division III collegiate athletic conference in the Mid-Atlantic United States. There are currently nine full member institutions as of 2018. The conference's membership, as with most M ...

, announced the addition of men's volleyball as a conference sport.

Member schools

Current members

The league currently has 10 full members. Note that because NCAA men's volleyball is a spring sport, the year of joining is the calendar year before the first season of competition.

Former members

School names and nicknames reflect those in use during the final season each school was a CVC member. In addition to the above schools, two other institutions that were adding men's volleyball for the 2014–15 school year (2015 season)—

Benedictine University Benedictine University is a private Roman Catholic university in Lisle, Illinois. It was founded in 1887 as St. Procopius College by the Benedictine monks of St. Procopius Abbey in the Pilsen community on the West Side of Chicago. The instit ...

in Illinois and

Loras College Loras College is a private Catholic college in Dubuque, Iowa. It has an enrollment of approximately 1,600 students and is the oldest post-secondary institution in the state of Iowa. The school offers both undergraduate and graduate degree pro ...

in Iowa—had been announced as new CVC members. They never officially joined the CVC, instead uniting with the six Midwestern CVC schools in the MCVL. (Benedictine left once its all-sports home of the

Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference The Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC), formerly the Northern Athletics Conference (NAC), is a college athletic conference. It participates in the NCAA's Division III and began its first season in the fall of 2006. The NACC sponsor ...

began sponsoring men's volleyball in 2017–18, while Loras left the MCVL in 2019 for single-sport membership in the

College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin The College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) is a college athletic conference which competes in the Division III level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). CCIW schools have accounted for 50 national championships ...

, which added men's volleyball for 2019–20 and beyond.)

Membership timeline

As noted previously, the year of joining is the calendar year before the first season of competition. DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:2011 till:2021 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:o left:0 bottom:50 top:0 Colors = id:barcolor id:line value:pink id:bg value:white PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:pink from:2011 till:2019 text:

Cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehi ...

(2011–2019) bar:2 color:pink from:2011 till:end text: Eastern Mennonite (2011–present) bar:3 color:pink from:2011 till:end text: Juniata (2011–present) bar:4 color:pink from:2011 till:2013 text:

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

(2011–2013) bar:5 color:pink from:2011 till:2014 text:

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

(2011–2014) bar:6 color:pink from:2011 till:2014 text: Dominican (2011–2014) bar:7 color:pink from:2011 till:2014 text: Fontbonne (2011–2014) bar:8 color:pink from:2011 till:2014 text: Lakeland (2011–2014) bar:9 color:pink from:2011 till:2012 text: Mount St. Joseph (2011–12, 2013–14) bar:9 color:pink from:2013 till:2014 bar:10 color:pink from:2011 till:2014 text: MSOE (2011–2014) bar:11 color:pink from:2011 till:2017 text: Stevenson (2011–2017) bar:12 color:pink from:2011 till:2018 text: Thiel (2011–2018) bar:13 color:pink from:2013 till:end text: Marymount (2013–present) bar:14 color:pink from:2014 till:end text: Rutgers–Newark (2014–present) bar:15 color:pink from:2016 till:2017 text: Alvernia (2016–2017) bar:16 color:pink from:2017 till:end text: Kean (2017–present) bar:17 color:pink from:2017 till:2020 text: Neumann (2017–2020) bar:18 color:pink from:2017 till:2019 text: Ramapo (2017–2019) bar:19 color:pink from:2017 till:end text: Southern Virginia (2017–present) bar:20 color:pink from:2018 till:end text: Elizabethtown (2018–present) bar:21 color:pink from:2018 till:end text: Immaculata (2018–present) bar:22 color:pink from:2018 till:end text: Randolph–Macon (2018–present) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:2 start:2011

Conference Tournament Champions

* *''Cancelled due to the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

League titles by school

Notes

References

{{Reflist NCAA Division III conferences