MEMORANDUM

To:   The NJIT Community
From:   Lenny Kaplan, Athletics Director
Date:   Thursday, July 17, 2008
RE:   NJIT Joins Great West Conference

I am pleased to announce that we have accepted an invitation for 11 of our intercollegiate athletics teams to compete in the expanded Great West Conference.  The sports that will be joining the Great West are: baseball; basketball (men and women); women’s volleyball; women’s tennis; cross country (men and women); indoor track and field (men and women); and, outdoor track and field (men and women).  Other NJIT teams with continuing conference membership include: men’s soccer in the Atlantic Soccer Conference; women’s soccer in the United Soccer Conference; and, men’s volleyball in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association.

Joining in the expansion of the Great West, which previously operated as a football-only conference, to an all-sports conference formalizes ties with schools in states in which we have already been competing as an independent since we began Division I competition in 2006-07.  Some of the benefits in accepting the invitation are:

• Conference championship opportunities for our student-athletes.
• Student-athlete awards and recognition.
• Scheduling stability, which helps us to plan better to limit missed class time over an entire season.
• Established yearly schedules for our basketball teams, including guaranteed home games during the months of January and February when conference play is in full swing, and scheduling for independent schools is difficult.

Currently, there is an NCAA moratorium on the formation of new conferences, which ends August 2011.  Were we to decline the Great West invitation, it would have likely resulted in our exclusion from joining a conference until after the moratorium is ended and conference realignment and formation is likely to take place.  Although the geographical structure of the conference is not ideal, continuing to remain an independent would have jeopardized our ability to create future schedules in the best interest of our student-athletes and been an impediment to our goal of building a successful intercollegiate athletics program.

I hope you will join me in supporting our student-athletes in this new chapter of our Division I transition.

Thanks