The MAC Commonwealth, in full Middle Atlantic Conference Commonwealth, is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

's Division III. It is one of the three conferences that operate under the umbrella of 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 ...

; the others being the

MAC Freedom The MAC Freedom, in full Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom, is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. It is one of the three conferences that operate under the umbrella of the Middle Atlantic Conferences; ...

and the Middle Atlantic Conference, a grouping used for some sports that consists of MAC Commonwealth and MAC Freedom schools. Member institutions are located in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

and

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

Member schools

Current members

The MAC Commonwealth currently has nine full members, all are private schools. The most recent changes to the MAC took place in 2020. First, the MAC announced in April 2019 that

York College of Pennsylvania York College of Pennsylvania is a private college in Spring Garden Township, York County, Pennsylvania, Spring Garden Township, Pennsylvania. It offers more than 70 baccalaureate majors in professional programs, the sciences, and humanities to 3 ...

would join from the

Capital Athletic Conference The Coast to Coast Athletic Conference (C2C; officially stylized as Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference), formerly named Capital Athletic Conference (CAC), is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Member ...

in 2020. The following month, the MAC announced that upon York's arrival, the MAC Commonwealth and MAC Freedom would be realigned so that each would have 9 members. Eastern moved from the MAC Freedom to the MAC Commonwealth, while Arcadia and Lycoming moved in the opposite direction. With the departure of Lycoming and Wilkes from both the MAC Freedom and the overall MAC, Lebanon Valley will move to MAC Freedom to balance the membership numbers. ;Notes: Enrollment source:

Former members

The MAC Commonwealth had six former full members, all were private schools: ;Notes:

Membership timeline

DateFormat = yyyy ImageSize = width:1000 height:auto barincrement:20 Period = from:1999 till:2024 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:20 left:0 bottom:50 top:5 #> to display a count on left side of graph, use "left:20" to suppress the count, use "left:20"<# Colors = id:barcolor value:rgb(0.99,0.7,0.7) id:line value:black id:bg value:white id:Full value:rgb(0.742,0.727,0.852) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports id:FullxF value:rgb(0.551,0.824,0.777) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in all sports except for football id:AssocF value:rgb(0.98,0.5,0.445) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member for football only id:AssocOS value:rgb(0.5,0.691,0.824) # Use this color to denote a team that is a member in some sports, but not all (consider identifying in legend or a footnote) id:OtherC1 value:rgb(0.996,0.996,0.699) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference id:OtherC2 value:rgb(0.988,0.703,0.383) # Use this color to denote a team that has moved to another conference where OtherC1 has already been used, to distinguish the two PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s bar:1 color:Full from:1999 till:end text: Albright (1999–present) bar:2 color:FullxF from:1999 till:2014 text: Elizabethtown (1999–2014) bar:3 color:Full from:1999 till:2007 text: Juniata (1999–2007) bar:4 color:Full from:1999 till:2023 text:

Lebanon Valley The Lebanon Valley is a geographic region that lies between South Mountain and the Ridge and Valley Province of eastern Pennsylvania. The valley lies almost entirely within Lebanon and Berks counties in Pennsylvania. Portions of the valley lie ...

(1999–2023) bar:5 color:FullxF from:1999 till:end text:

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

(1999–present) bar:6 color:Full from:1999 till:2007 text: Moravian (1999–2007) bar:7 color:Full from:1999 till:2007 text: Susquehanna (1999–2007) bar:8 color:Full from:1999 till:end text: Widener (1999–present) bar:9 color:Full from:2007 till:2020 text: Lycoming (2007–2020) bar:10 color:FullxF from:2008 till:2020 text: Arcadia (2008–2020) bar:11 color:FullxF from:2009 till:end text: Alvernia (2009–present) bar:12 color:FullxF from:2012 till:end text: Hood (2012–present) bar:13 color:Full from:2012 till:end text: Stevenson (2012–present) bar:14 color:FullxF from:2020 till:end text:

Eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

(2020–present) bar:15 color:FullxF from:2020 till:end text:

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

(2020–present) ScaleMajor = gridcolor:line unit:year increment:1 start:1999 TextData = fontsize:M textcolor:black pos:(300,30) # tabs:(0-center) text:"MAC Commonwealth membership history"

Sports

The MAC Commonwealth sponsors intercollegiate athletic competition in men's

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

, men's and women's

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, women's

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

, men's

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

, men's and women’s

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

, women's

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

, men's and women's

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

, and women's

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

. In addition, members also compete in the

Middle Atlantic Conference 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 ...

in men's and women's cross country, men's

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

, men's and women's

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice ...

, men's and women's

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...

, men's and women's

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

, men's and women's indoor and outdoor

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

, men's volleyball, and men's

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat s ...

Footnotes

References

External links

* {{NCAA Division III conference navbox *