NEWARK, NJ – Rutgers University-Newark has accepted membership in the Continental Volleyball Conference (CVC) for the 2014-15 season as the Scarlet Raiders enter their first season as a full-fledged NCAA Division III program.

CVC Website Release

The six members of the eastern division of the CVC voted unanimously to accept Rutgers-Newark, which is in its final year of transition from NCAA Division I to Division III status, into the rapidly developing volleyball association.  The league will expand from a 12-team to a 15-team 2-division conference next year.

The CVC Eastern Division includes Juniata College, Cairn University, Thiel College, Stevenson University, Eastern Mennonite University and Marymount University. 

The Western Division will become the Midwest Division next season with the addition of Loras College and Benedictine University – two schools which will be launched men's volleyball programs next season.  Current Western Division members are Milwaukee School of Engineering, Lakeland College, the College of Mount Saint Joseph, Fontbonne University, Carthage College and Dominican University.

The Raiders will be eligible to compete for the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament next spring.

Long a member of the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA), Rutgers-Newark is the last NCAA Division III institution to maintain a Division I men's volleyball program.  The Scarlet Raiders have been in transition toward non-athletic scholarship division III status to provide a unified department philosophy.  The advent of an NCAA Division III Men's Volleyball Championship Tournament last year also helped spark the reclassification.

Rutgers-Newark is competing in the EIVA for the final season, playing Penn State, Princeton, Harvard, George Mason, Saint Francis, Sacred Heat and neighborhood rival NJIT in home-and-away series for the last time without an athletic scholarship athlete on its roster.

CVC scheduling will be one of the first orders of business for Rutgers-Newark Men's Volleyball Coach Pedro Trevino and CVC Commissioner Gary Williams.