The Envoy

Photography / Courtesy of CUNY Athletics.

On April 16th at roughly 12 pm, the City University of New York’s Athletic Conference (CUNYAC) made a groundbreaking announcement about the conference’s future. Right across the Hudson river in Jersey City, New Jersey City University (NJCU) is set to join CUNYAC’s institutions in creating a “new and expanded conference” in 2027. This news came off the end of the men’s volleyball season, which saw Hunter come as the runners-up to Baruch, who are now 5 time conference champions. Timing aside, this news left many wondering why both CUNYAC and NJCU decided to go with this decision.

CUNYAC’s new commissioner, Dr. Kurt Patberg was named to the position in January 2025. Patberg was commissioner of the newly formed Collegiate Conference of the South, another Division three conference. He is the former head of a pair of division two conferences as well as an NAIA conference. Patberg is vice president of Mammoth Sports Consulting, a construction firm in Kansas that specializes in sports fields and gyms. 

CUNYAC itself has been a Division Three conference member for almost 40 years. The conference was created in 1987 and has only been inhabited by CUNY schools. CUNYAC has had one past partnership with another Division Three conference, which was the North Atlantic Conference, or the NAC for short. The conferences came together for two years and aligned their baseball conference champions – resulting in the winners autobid to the NCAA D3 baseball championship.

This deal was created due to the NCAA Division three rules, “which stipulate that a conference needs seven members in each team sport to receive an automatic qualifier to the NCAA Tournament,” as stated in the original announcement of the NAC-CUNYAC merger. CUNYAC and NAC only had 5 teams each at the time, and the deal started in 2019 and ended in 2021.

The Gothic Knights of New Jersey City University are also no stranger to departures themselves. Originally a founding member of NJAC, they previously were an affiliate member of CUNYAC in 2005 for baseball and made it to the baseball championship. They were an independent member in other sports for the 2004-05 season before going back to NJAC the year after.

When asked for a statement, Commissioner Patberg said this:

“New Jersey City University brings far more than just a competitive Division III institution to our new conference but they send a strong signal that this future expanded conference is on the horizon. This announcement and approval also illustrate to those who have been involved in the CUNYAC for years that change and growth is possible and will be occurring.”

NJCU will join CUNYAC in 2027, with the first arrival being men’s volleyball in the spring of 2026. The Gothic Knights will be an official member of the conference in the fall of 2027. The announcement states that other schools will be joining the new conference with 8 CUNYAC schools and NJCU, yet it remains to be seen who those schools will be.  Despite the abrupt announcement, one can hope that the new conference can bring competition and trophies for Hunter and the CUNY schools at large.