America East Conference

The America East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA Division I, whose members are located mainly in the Northeastern United States, specifically New England. Its nine members include the public flagship universities of three states, and one private university.

History
The America East Conference was founded as the Eastern College Athletic Conference-North, a men's basketball-only athletic conference in 1979. The conference was known as the Eastern College Athletic Conference-North from 1979 to 1988 and the North Atlantic Conference from 1988 to 1996. The charter members were the University of Rhode Island, the College of the Holy Cross, Canisius College, Niagara University, Colgate University, Northeastern University, Boston University, the University of Maine, the University of New Hampshire and the University of Vermont.

The America East Conference made history during the 2018 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament on March 16, 2018 when No. 16 seed UMBC defeated No. 1 seed Virginia, marking the first time in tournament history that a No. 1 seed had lost to a No. 16 seed.

Many other events have occurred since its formation:
 * Rhode Island left in 1980.
 * Holy Cross left in 1983.
 * Siena College joined in 1984.
 * The University of Hartford joined in 1985.
 * Later, the conference became an all-sports conference, named as the North Atlantic Conference in the 1988-89 season, only for Canisius, Niagara and Siena to leave after the spring of 1989 to join the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC).
 * Colgate left in 1990 to join the Patriot League.
 * The University of Delaware and Drexel University joined in 1991.
 * Hofstra University joined in 1994.
 * Towson University joined in 1995.
 * On July 1, 1996, the conference's name changed to its present name, the America East Conference.
 * During 2001, Delaware, Drexel, Hofstra and Towson left to join the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) while the University at Albany, Binghamton University and Stony Brook University replaced them.
 * The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) soon joined in 2003.
 * Northeastern left in 2005 to join the CAA.
 * Most recently, Boston University left to join the Patriot League on July 1, 2013, while the University of Massachusetts Lowell joined from Division II.

Current members
The AEC has 8 member institutions located within the borders of 6 contiguous states. The 9th, UMBC, is the only institution not bordering other conference institutions. Hartford is the only private institution.

Associate members
Five schools currently hold associate membership. Four schools from California moved their field hockey teams into the America East in July 2015. The newest associate member is the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), which joined in men's and women's swimming & diving starting with the 2017–18 school year.

The aforementioned California schools initially announced that they would leave America East field hockey after the 2018 season (2018–19 school year), but apparently backed out of that plan and will remain in the AmEast for the immediate future. This coincided with the announcement that Monmouth would become the newest field hockey associate for the 2019 season and beyond.

Former associate members
Three schools have had single-sport membership in the past. Two of these, Fairfield and Providence, moved their America East sports into their all-sports conferences. The third, NJIT, left when it joined a conference that sponsored its America East sport.

Membership timeline
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Sports sponsored
The America East Conference sponsors championship competition in eight men's and ten women's NCAA sanctioned sports. The most recent changes to the roster of America East sports were announced in 2016, with the dropping of women's tennis after the 2015–16 season due to a lack of sponsoring teams and the revival of men's swimming and diving effective in the 2017–18 school year.

Men's sports

 * Notes

Women's sports

 * Notes

NCAA team championships
No America East school has won a national title in a sport sponsored by the conference; however, member institutions have been national champions in non-America East sports.

All-time school record by winning percentage
This list goes through the 2017–18 season.